"When I open my door, I want to see the smile of my neighbor": this is a Chinese woman's wish for her personal life, and also in the wider realm of relations between China and Japan.
Speaking to more than 40 Japanese visitors at the High School affiliated to Beijing Normal University on Friday, Yuan Aijun, the headmistress, said "amiable relations between China and Japan is what I most want to see, because, for one, my daughter is going to study in Japan.
"More importantly, I teach my students to honor peace and friendship, and I think that's what our countries exactly need," she told the audience.
The visitors, many of whom are on their first visits to China, were among a 450-strong member delegation headed by Ozawa Ichiro, leader of the Democratic Party of Japan.
They saw for themselves the lives of Chinese migrant workers' children, tested new gadgets developed by Beijing technological firms, and even sought experience from the headmistress to deal with truancy and bullying in schools.
Komatsu Tadashi, a delegate who took special interest in Chinese opera when visiting a Beijing theater, said "the art bears many similarities to Japanese Kabuki, and it's important for the two arts to communicate."
"I hope there are more of such cultural and art exchanges," he said.
The delegates' visits were a continuation of a spate of bilateral exchanges in the recent days, which experts say signal an acceleration in warming bilateral ties.
Last Friday, a Chinese navy ship visited Japan for the first time since 1949, followed by the first China-Japan high-level economic dialogue, acclaimed by both parties as "very fruitful".
Meanwhile, mutual visits have been planned in the near future by Japan Prime Minister Yasuo Fukuda to China and Chinese President Hu Jintao to Japan.
"Sino-Japanese relations have achieved a good momentum recently," Chinese President Hu Jintao said when meeting with the delegates on Friday.
"What we have achieved so far was done through generations of painstaking and hard work by peoples in both countries, and the results should be treasured and maintained with great care," Hu said.
The next year, which marks the 30th anniversary of the Treaty of Peace and Friendship between the People's Republic of China and Japan, shall be another important occasion for furthering bilateral relations, and there will be a series of important activities, Hu told the audience.
But as ice thawed, researchers noted that some problems remain between the neighbors.
"Harsh problems remain, such as China's huge deficit in its trade with Japan, and the two countries' differences on the issue of the East China Sea," Zhang Jifeng, head of the Economic Office of the Japan Research Institute of CASS (Chinese Academy of Social Sciences), said in a recent interview with Xinhua.
The problems could not be solved through one or two mechanisms or exchanges of visits, both sides should consistently work for a good and sound atmosphere for furthering bilateral ties, Zhang added.
China and Japan have seen their relations improved since ice-thawing trips by former Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe to China last October, and Chinese premier Wen Jiabao in April this year to Japan.
The visits signalled an end to a five-year impasse caused by former Japanese Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi's persistent visits to the Yasukuni Shrine, where 14 Class-A war criminals are among those honored. Many of the criminals were executed for their part in the six-week-long Nanjing Massacre in China, which began on December 13, 1937.
As the 70th anniversary of the massacre draws near, Chinese netizens have left more than 124,000 messages on a Sina webpage, where pictures of fluttering candle lights dedicated to massacre victims and striking images of the atrocities were played against sad and bleak music.
"May the deceased rest in peace, and may this piece of history not be forgotten," one of them wrote.
|
Comment
Tell A Friend
Print Format
Save Article