Top advisor meets former Japanese PM

BEIJING—China’s top political advisor Jia Qinglin met here on Thursday with visiting former Japanese Prime Minister Tomiichi Murayama and urged both nations to expand exchanges and cooperation.
Jia, chairman of the National Committee of the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference (CPPCC), China’s top political advisory body, applauded Murayama’s positive contribution to the development of friendly China-Japan relations.
China and Japan enjoy a long history of friendly exchanges, and the cultural and artistic exchanges between the two nations play an important role in the friendship between the two peoples, Jia said. This year is the 30th anniversary of the signing of the Sino-Japanese peace and friendship treaty. The current situation of bilateral relations as a whole shows sound development momentum and presents new opportunities, Jia said.
He called for both sides to increase exchanges and cooperation, in line with the spirit of learning from history and looking forward to the future, so as to promote understanding and friendship between the two peoples and take strategic and reciprocal relations to a new level. Murayama, who was here on a visit to attend activities related to the Ikuo Hirayama Exhibition at the invitation of the China-Japan Friendship Association, noted that the Hirayama exhibition was being held in Beijing during the year of the 30th anniversary of the signing of the Sino-Japanese peace and friendship treaty, and ahead of Chinese President Hu Jintao’s visit to Japan. This was of special significance, he noted.
Murayama hoped that this exhibition would help promote cultural exchanges between Japan and China and contribute to the development of bilateral strategic and reciprocal relations. Jia attended the opening ceremony and cut a ribbon to launch the exhibition.
Jia Qinglin, China’s top political advisor, has called for further reform and opening-up during his visit to southern Guangdong Province. As the frontier and epitome of China’s economic reform and opening-up, the southern province had made remarkable progress in the past three decades and should explore new ways to further the reform, said Jia, the National Committee of the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference (CPPCC) chairman, during the six-day trip that ended Sunday.
Jia visited several leading domestic companies and Sino-foreign joint ventures in the province known for its export-oriented manufacturing. “The key task of China’s economic development in the future is to change its development pattern.”
The country should work to improve its capability of research and development, industrial structure, energy efficiency and environmental protection, he added. The top political advisor also dropped in on needy families who had suffered in the recent winter storm in the northern part of the province.

—Xinhua