Breakfast Meeting Held to Welcome Visiting Japanese Prime Minister Yasuo Fukuda

The China-Japan Friendship Association (CJFA) and the CPAFFC held a breakfast meeting at the Diaoyutai State Guest House in Beijing on December 29, 2007 to welcome visiting Japanese Prime Minister Yasuo Fukuda. Premier Wen Jiabao and Prime Minister Fukuda attended it and made speeches on the occasion.

In his speech Premier Wen reemphasized the three important foundations for Sino-Japanese friendship: first, to abide by the three political documents signed between China and Japan, draw lessons from history and look to the future; second, the people’s support constitutes the real foundation for China-Japan friendship, therefore, the people of the two countries should respect and understand each other and treat each other equally; and third, the future of China-Japan friendship depends on the young people. The Premier said, if economic and trade cooperation stands for the present-day Sino-Japanese relations, then, exchanges between the youth and friendship between our peoples contain the future of the relationship.

Premier Wen briefed those present on the important consensuses reached between the two sides during Prime Minister Fukuda’s visit, which are: to further advance bilateral relations through important high-level visits in 2008, to continuously enrich the content of the strategic relationship of mutual benefit between China and Japan, and to give priority to cultural and educational exchanges and cooperation and increase youth exchanges.

Premier Wen happily recalled his visit to Japan in April 2007 and recited the poem he had composed to express his great expectation for the Sino-Japanese relations. It reads:

The ice-thawing visit remains fresh in my mind.

Plum blossons and timely snow signal the arrival of the New Year,

The spring next year will be brighter.

Prime Minister Fukuda said that his visit covering a wide range of issues was fruitful. He noted that 2007 saw the 35th anniversary of the normalization of diplomatic relations between Japan and China and witnessed rapid development of people-to-people exchanges. He wished to take the visit as an opportunity to further consolidate the foundation of Japan-China relations and hoped that 2008 would go down in history as a year of speedy development of bilateral relations.

CJFA President Song Jian, Vice Foreign Ministers Dai Bingguo and Wang Yi, and CPAFFC President Chen Haosu, among over 200 people of all walks of life from China and Japan, attended the meeting.