Wu Bangguo, chairman of the Standing Committee of the China's National People's Congress, met in Beijing Monday with a Japanese youth delegation headed by Hayashi Yoshimasa, member of the House of Councilors of Japan.  

The visit was part of a program set up in accordance with a framework plan of cooperation between the youth of the two countries signed in 1998 when former Chinese President Jiang Zemin visited Japan.

Wu said that Sino-Japanese youth exchanges have been fruitful since 1998, and the youth of the two countries have promoted mutual understanding and friendship and injected dynamism into the good-neighborly relations between the two countries.

Noting that the youth of the two countries shoulder the responsibility of maintaining friendship between the two countries, Wu said that the Chinese government attaches importance to the exchanges between the youth and encourages the young politicians to increase contacts.

He voiced the hope that the youth of the two countries could, according to the principles of learning from history and facing the future, continue to push forward the Sino-Japanese relations.

Hayashi Yoshimasa said that youth exchanges constitute an important component of the relations between Japan and China, and he and other delegates would like to inherit the cause of Sino-Japanese friendship and promote the bilateral relations.

(Xinhua News Agency December 9, 2003)