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Take History as Mirror, Look Forward to Future, Jiang
President Jiang Zemin said Tuesday that China and Japan should adhere to the principle of "taking history as a mirror and looking forward to the future" so as to ensure the development of a long-standing friendship between the two countries.
Jiang met with the secretaries-general of the three coalition parties of the Japanese government: Taku Yamazaki of the Liberal Democratic Party, Fuyushiba Tetsuzo of the Komei Party, and Takeshi Noda of the Conservative Party.
The Japanese guests are here on a three-day visit at the invitation of the Chinese government.
Jiang said that China and Japan are close neighbors and the two countries agreed to build up a friendly and cooperative partnership devoted to peace and development during his 1998 visit to Japan.
To ensure the long-term development, the two countries should inherit and promote the good tradition and greatly advance the bilateral friendship, he said.
Jiang particularly stressed that the friendly exchanges among young people of the two countries should be strengthened for enhancing mutual understanding and deepening friendly feeling.
On issue of history, Jiang said that history is objective. " Historical facts cannot be artificially understated or exaggerated, " he said.
The aggression war launched by the Japanese militarists brought atrocities to the Chinese people. However, China has always advocated to look forward to the future, he said, stressing that the Japanese government should tell its people true history.
"To seriously draw lessons from history is to better face up the future and open up a new chapter to the future," he said, adding that both China and Japan are important nations in Asia, and the two countries should make concerted efforts for the long- term interests of the two peoples and the future development and prosperity of Asia.
The secretaries-general conveyed the aspiration of the new Japanese government to push forward the Japan-China ties. Such ties, along with Japan-U.S. relations, are the most important bilateral relationship for Japan.
They agreed that the current problems between the two countries should be properly handled so that the overall growth of bilateral ties would not be affected. And the purpose of their ongoing visit is to frankly exchange views with Chinese side with a view to seeking improvement and development of the bilateral relations.
To that end, they said that the two sides should forge a mutual trust relationship, and the key issue in this aspect is the proper handling of historic issues. Japan will stick to the principles set in the Japan-China Joint Statement when President Jiang visited Japan in 1998.
In the meeting Taku Yamazaki conveyed a letter from Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi to Jiang.
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