A seminar commemorating the 40th anniversary of the exchange of resident correspondents between China and Japan was held in Beijing on Monday.

China sent seven journalists to Tokyo and Japan sent nine journalists to Beijing in September 1964, eight years before the normalization of bilateral relations.

"Such an exchange was a major breakthrough in Sino-Japanese media cooperation, making it possible for journalists to get first-hand information by observing and interviewing in the other country,"said retired journalist Liu Deyou. He worked in Japan from 1964 to 1978 as a correspondent for Guangming Daily and the Xinhua News Agency.

"This created favorable conditions for the two peoples to enhance mutual understanding," he added.

State Council Information Office Minister Zhao Qizheng said that these journalists were not only notetakers, but also witnesses to the history of the two countries.

Japanese charge d'affaires Chikahito Harada said that they had played important roles in promoting mutual understanding and trust between the Japanese and Chinese peoples.

But Zhao and Harada, as well as veteran journalists, urged the media from both countries to ensure that their reports are fair and objective, especially in an era when information technology is booming.

"The media should take seriously the problems and negative factors in bilateral relations. They should do their utmost to write dispassionate reports without involving their personal feelings and without exaggeration, so that the public can see possible solution to these problems," said Liu Deyou.

Liu was echoed by Katsumi Yokobori, a correspondent for the Asahi Shimbun in Beijing in the 1980s and 1990s. Yokobori said that Japanese journalists must make every effort to understand the situation in China and to convey that situation to the people of Japan.

Zhao Qizheng expressed concern over the current situation, in which China and Japan have strong economic ties but an icy political relationship.

Two-way trade reached US$135 billion last year. Japan is now China's biggest trading partner, while China is Japan's second-largest trading partner.

But Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi has visited Tokyo's Yasukuni Shrine four times since he took office in 2001, an activity that invariably leads to friction. Koizumi reportedly said that he would visit the shrine again next year.

The Yasukuni Shrine honors more than 2.5 million Japanese war dead, including 14 World War II Class-A war criminals. It is widely perceived as a symbol of Japanese militarism.

"It is regretful that the leadership of China and Japan have not exchanged visits for four years," said Yukio Ogoshi, a veteran Japanese journalist who worked for the Tokyo Broadcasting System (TBS) as one of the nine original Japanese resident correspondents in Beijing.

"I thought at that time that Japan and China should aim their relations in a peaceful direction to promote long-term and stable development. I have not changed this view," said Ogoshi.

He said he felt the sense of historical responsibility of "preventing the wheels of history from turning back" during his stay in China.

(China Daily September 7, 2004)