Maintaining Neighborly Cooperation to Seek Common Development

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Last updated at: (Beijing Time) Monday, April 15, 2002

Maintaining Neighborly Cooperation to Seek Common Development

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Japanese Ambassador Mr. Koreshige Anami is, no doubt, a suitable person to talk about commemoration of the 30th anniversary of the normalization of China-Japan relations. This is not only because he is Japanese ambassador to China, but also because of his working experience.

As a professional diplomat, he was an advance man to China when the then Prime Minister Tanaka decided to visit China for the normalization of Japan-China diplomatic relations. In the 30 years thereafter, he become China question expert, who has experienced changes in China-Japan relations.

On April 5, we, correspondents Sun Dongmin and Cao Pengcheng of People's Daily, went to the Japanese Embassy in China according to appointment to have an interview with this Japanese envoy.

From the time when Mr. Anami was studying in middle school, he had shown a strong interest in Chinese culture, he liked calligraphy and poetry of the Tang Dynasty (618-907), his wife is a scholar in the history of Liao (907-1125) and Jin (1125-1234) dynasties, they became attached to each other because they both studied Chinese. He said their eldest son was born in the month of the normalization of diplomatic relations between China and Japan, out of their great respect for China and Zhuge Liang (181-234), a statesman and strategist and prime minister of the Kingdom of Shu, they specially gave their son the name of "You Liang".

Speaking about the commemorative activities marking the 30th anniversary of the normalization of China-Japan relations, Mr. Anami said, like a man who should be independent at the age of 30, the 30th anniversary of the normalization of diplomatic relations had the significance of carrying on the past and opening a way for the future, the multitude of commemorative activities would inject fresh vigor into the development of bilateral ties. Beginning from April, the two countries has raised the curtain for organizing the activities of the "Year of Japanese Culture" and the "Year of Chinese Culture", Chairman Li Peng and Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi personally attended the opening ceremony held in Tokyo, demonstrating the wishes of the two countries to face the future and devote efforts to the establishment of a friendly, cooperative partnership featuring peace and development.

Thirty years ago, the two countries put an end to the long-term abnormality of their relations and realized normalization of diplomatic ties, its historic significance is self-evident. Anami indicated that he had "profound respect for leaders of the two countries and the wise decision and contributions of the older generation". He recalled that Japan-China relationship has been going upward over the past 30 years, bilateral exchanges in the fields of politics, economy and culture are unprecedented in terms of depth and breadth. For example, there were constant mutual visits between top-level officials of the two countries, personnel contacts reached 1.8 million persons/times in 2001, 204-times over that of 1972, and bilateral trade volume reached a record high of US$89.1 billion (it was US$87.7 billion according to Chinese statistics), up by 87-fold compared to 1972. In addition, in the 20 years after 1979, the total volume of Japanese loans both with and without compensation to China had hit 2.9 trillion Japanese yen (equivalent to 190 billion yuan), fulfilling the promise the then Prime Minister Masayoshi Ohira made during his China visit that he would try his best to provide China with cooperation in its modernization drive, he thus won the praises of the Chinese government and people. The reasons for the continuing development of the friendly cooperation China and Japan have achieved by transcending their different social systems are: one is the traditional link of cultural exchanges for more than 2,000 years; second is economic cooperation that constitutes the foundation for bilateral relationship. "To sum up, it is the fact that from leaders of the two countries down to ordinary people, all pay attention to the development of Japan-China relations and have a strong desire to strengthen friendship."

There is no need for reticence that there have been twists and turns in China-Japan relations over the past 30 years. The history textbooks, Japanese Prime Minister's visit to Yasukuni Shrine, Lee Teng-hui's Japan visit and trade disputes occurred last year plunged China-Japan relations to a slump for some while. At this point, Ambassador Anami expressed the view that although people often say the Chinese know full well of Japan and the Japanese understand China best, in fact, the two sides still lack mutual understanding. As China's economy has developed, there appears the "China threat" view in Japan. To properly handle the sensitive problem in China-Japan ties, it is necessary, as President Jiang Zemin has said, first, to take precautionary measures against any possible trouble; second, to seek timely solution to the problem once it arises; and third, not allow individual problems to affect the general situation.

Mr. Anami said a comprehensive look at Japan-China relationship over the past 2,000 years reveals the fact that in the past invariably when one side was strong, the other side was weak. In ancient times, Chinese culture held absolute superiority; in the contemporary era, Japan embarked on the road of invading China by making itself prosperous and building up its military force. It was only till modern time that Japan and China have finally set up a relationship of equality. Over the past 30 years, Japan and China have developed ties of being realistic and pragmatic, engaging in frank dialogs, equal importance to officials and civilians, interdependence in economic relationship, and infinite potentialities for non-governmental (enterprise) investment and cooperation.

As the 11th Japanese ambassador to China, Mr. Anami thanked the Chinese friends for their warm contacts with him since he took office. He expects that taking advantage of the commemoration of the 30th anniversary of the normalization of diplomatic relations, China-Japan relations can experience a completely new change, and the two sides are sure of achieving common development through neighborly cooperation by taking honesty as the foundation, putting dialogs first, examining the other side with a new visual angle and constructing the future with new actions.

By PD Online Staff

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