"I was the secret envoy for negotiations of the Japan-China Peace and Friendship Treaty," said Hiroaki Kitamura, managing director of the Japan-Asia Exchange Association, with pride while recalling the signing of the pact.
Kitamura, then resident liaison of the Association for the Promotion of International Trade, Japan (JAPIT) in Beijing, worked as a secret envoy for the contacts and communication between leaders of the two countries and witnessed the whole process of the negotiations and signing of the treaty.
"Shortly after the normalization of bilateral diplomatic relations in 1972, China began to consider a peace and friendship treaty with Japan," said Kitamura, in an exclusive interview with Xinhua as the 30th anniversary of the signing of the treaty, which falls on Aug. 12, is drawing near.
The two sides began to negotiate the treaty in August 1973. In December 1973, Kitamura returned to Japan to report the opinions and suggestions on bilateral ties offered by Liao Chengzhi, then chairman of the China-Japan Friendship Association, to Takeo Fukuda and Sunao Sonoda, who later became Japan's prime minister and foreign minister.
"I acted as the secret contact channel between the Chinese side and Sonoda as well as Fukuda," Kitamura said.
"In other words, I became the secret liaison with Deng Xiaoping and Liao Chengzhi," said Kitamura, who held 12 separate talks with Liao and met four times with Deng, then Chinese vice premier, for the treaty.
"The secret channel transmitted the most important information directly between the leaders of the two countries," he said.
On his four meetings with Deng, Kitamura said that each meeting took one or two hours. "Deng talked a lot with me on important and secret issues," he said.
In October 1978, Deng visited Japan to exchange documents of the ratification of the treaty with Japan.
"The Japanese government attached great importance to the visit," he said, adding that Deng and Liao stayed at the state guest house, which was usually arranged just for visiting heads of state.
Under the instruction of Foreign Minister Sonoda, Kitamura bought four plates of sushi from a famous shop in Tokyo's Shibuya Ward for Deng and Liao.
"Seeing Mr. Deng was satisfied with the Japanese food, I became greatly relieved because I had accomplished the task successfully," he recalled.
The Japanese official was born in Fushun in Northeast China in 1942. He finished his primary schooling in China before returning to Japan with his family.
On the future of bilateral ties, Kitamura said he believes that the prospects for Japan-China relations are bright.
"After all, the two nations have conducted friendly exchanges for more than 2,000 years," he said.
Kitamura hoped that the governments of both countries would promote cooperation in economy and trade, both in terms of quality and quantity, so as to lift bilateral ties to a higher level.
Source: Xinhua
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