After visits to Shanghai and Northwest China's Gansu Province,
the Japan-China friendship delegation will today arrive in Beijing
for the final leg of a weeklong friendship tour.
The 220-member group, led by former Japanese Prime Minister
Yasuhiro Nakasone, mostly comprises people, or their delegates, who
took part in the largest-ever Japan-China youth gathering in 1984,
as well as representatives from several Japanese friendship
organizations.
The group arrived in Shanghai on Thursday, where many of them
marveled at the dramatic changes the city has experienced since
they were last there 23 years ago.
Some 3,000 young Japanese visited China in the autumn of 1984,
making it the largest foreign group the country had received since
1949. They met with about 1 million Chinese youths from all walks
of life to celebrate the 12th anniversary of the normalization of
Sino-Japanese relations.
The event was described as unprecedented in the history of
China-Japan friendship and was highly regarded in both
countries.
Before this year's delegation left for Gansu on Saturday, many
of the older members paid a special visit to Luxun Park, the site
of the 1984 gathering, where a clock was erected to commemorate the
event.
"Although I haven't seen it for 23 years, I was still very
excited. The park has changed a lot, but at the first sight of the
clock, memories of those heartwarming days came flooding back to
me," a delegation member was quoted by Shanghai Youth as
saying.
During their three-day stay in Shanghai, the delegation visited
the Shanghai Stock Exchange and Bao Steel Co Ltd, a heavyweight in
the industry.
They also visited an agricultural and gardening area, and called
in on some local families to engage in cultural activities such as
diabolo, calligraphy and ikebana.
Their Shanghai stay was further enriched by trips to the city's
bar association, media organizations, a university, the TV tower
and several museums.
For the second leg of their tour, the group went to Lanzhou, the
provincial capital of Gansu.
After being divided into 10 groups, the delegation explored the
province to find out about its economic, social, political and
cultural facets.
Hosted by the China Federation of Youth, the group will end its
tour on Wednesday.
The trip forms part of the activities being held to celebrate
the 2007 China-Japan Culture and Sports Year and the 35th
anniversary of the normalization of Sino-Japanese relations.
After years of strained relations between the two countries, the
situation was improved after Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe
visited China in October 2006. Relations were further warmed
following Wen Jiabao's trip to Japan earlier this year.
(China Daily June 18, 2007)
