Chinese President Hu Jintao is scheduled to pay a state visit to Japan from May 6 to 10, and his visit will be the first by a Chinese president to Japan over the past decade and it is seen as a step to further improve Sino-Japanese relations, which started to warm with the "ice-breaking" visit to China by former Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe in October 2006. That event was followed by the "ice-thawing" Japan trip by Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao in April 2007 and Prime Minister Yasuo Fukuda's "spring-herald" visit to China at the end of last December.
Thanks to these visits by Chinese and Japanese leaders, Sino-Japanese ties have returned to the track of normal growth. With President Hu Jintao's current trip in "warm spring"to Japan, China and Japan will further reinforce bilateral strategic and mutually beneficial relationships and spur the long-term, steady development of relations between the two countries.
A series of progress has been made in Sino-Japanese relations over the past year or so at the spur of an exchange of high-level visits between the two sides: In the diplomatic field, the two nations held the seventh and eighth Sino-Japanese strategic dialogues respectively in January 2007 and February 2008, during which both sides held in-depth discussions on major issues on the development of China-Japan strategic mutually beneficial relations. Moreover, the 10th and 11th China-Japan consultations on the East China Sea were held in October and November 2007. To prevent and ward off any possible contingency, China and Japan signed a maritime contact mechanism agreement.
In the economic sphere, China and Japan jointly launched their first high-level economic dialogue mechanism in 2007, and a candid exchange of views in their macro-economy, trade investment, climate change, energy preservation, environment protection, and regional cooperation increased bilateral mutual understanding. At present, Japan's capital and technological strength and China's rich labor forces and market with a huge potential and constantly improving investment environment are mutually complementary to the benefit of both sides.
A range of breakthroughs have also been scored in bilateral exchange in their military field. Cao Gangchuan, the then vice-chairman of the Chinese Central Military Commission and defense minister, visited Japan in August 2007, the first-ever visit by a Chinese defense minister in nearly a decade. The guided missile destroyer Shenzhen of the Chinese navy paid a port visit to Japan at the end of last year, also an "ice-breaking" visit in Sino-Japanese military exchange. In February this year, Admiral Takashi Saito, chief of the Joint Staff Office for the Japan Maritime Self Defense Force (JMSDF) naval vessels, also visited China. The exchange of military high-level visits has play a positive role in enhancing the understanding and mutual trust in the military sphere and promoting the growth of relations between the two nations and their armed forces.
With regard to the people-to-people contact, the two nations last year jointly sponsored a two-way tourism exchange program that involved 30,000 people from both nations to mark the 35th anniversary of the normalization of Sino-Japanese ties, and the year 2007 witnessed the exchange of far more visitors both from China and Japan. And 2008 was set as the year of friendly exchanges between Chinese and Japanese youths.
Of course, we should also acknowledge that there are still some problems yet to be resolved in Sino-Japanese relations. Though the "iceberg" between China and Japan has melted away, it still requires further efforts of both sides to make bilateral ties much warmer. The most vital and crucial way is to further step up exchanges in various social sectors, enhance the mutual understanding and trust, and forge a stable bond of mutual feelings. Meanwhile, it is essential to cope with the existing problems between China and Japan appropriately in a manner of friendly consultations to maximally achieve the mutual benefit and "win-win" results. Leaders of China and Japan have mapped out long-term plans for Sino-Japanese ties with their farsightedness and sagacity. People are convinced that China-Japan relations are sure to usher in a "warm spring" and bilateral mutual cooperation is bound to upgrade to a still higher and more in-depth level.
By People's Daily Online, and its author is Jiang Xinfeng, a researcher with the Foreign Military Studies Dept affiliated to the Chinese (PLA) Academy of Military Sciences
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