V. Social and cultural exchanges

1. Culture

Since the First Trilateral Culture Ministers' Meeting held in Nantong, China in 2007, the three countries had put in place a regular dialogue mechanism of cultural ministers, providing an important platform to constantly promote tripartite cultural exchanges and cooperation. Between 2007 and 2011, culture ministers of the three countries held three meetings, during which the Nantong Declaration, Jeju Declaration and Nara Declaration were adopted respectively in addition to other cooperation documents. They also reached consensus on major cooperation areas such as expanding and enhancing cultural and art exchanges, promoting tangible and intangible cultural heritage protection, boosting exchanges of the cultural industry and deepening tripartite culture exchanges of the youth. In May 2012, the Fourth Trilateral Culture Ministers' Meeting was held in Shanghai, during which the Shanghai Action Plan (2012-2014) was signed. There would also be the selection of "East Asia Capital of Culture" and joint hosting of events such as "East Asia Art Festivals".

The Trilateral Cultural Industry Forum alternately held by the Ministry of Culture of China, the Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism of the ROK and the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry of Japan is an important cooperation project of the three countries in the field of cultural industry. The Forum was first held in China in 2002. Since the third forum, a meeting mechanism of vice ministers of the three countries has been created and was incorporated into a trilateral cooperation action strategy. Major cooperation projects under the Forum include investigation of the cultural markets of the three countries, information gathering of cultural industry exhibitions, policy dialogue and joint personnel training of the cultural industry and plans of academic exchanges.

In September 2009, the three countries signed the Busan Declaration during the Eighth China-Japan-ROK Cultural Industry Forum in Busan, the ROK and established a joint working group for trilateral cooperation in the cultural industry which served as the working organ of the Forum according to the Declaration. The establishment of the working group marked a new era of tripartite cooperation in the cultural industry and was a new attempt to set up an inter-governmental cooperation platform for international cultural industry.

In 2011, the three countries completed drafting the text of a trilateral memorandum of cooperation on the cultural industry, which identified cooperation areas such as exchanges among the educational, training and professional personnel, exploring the joint manufacturing of and investment in cultural products, mutual attendance in each other's international cultural industry exhibitions, and copyright protection of cultural products. This memorandum is a guideline for the three countries to gradually expand their cooperation in the cultural industry.

2. Education

Since 1999, China has attached great importance and been committed to tripartite educational cooperation. In March 2006 and April 2007, China, Japan and the ROK held trilateral meetings for DGs of ministries of education in Seoul and Beijing respectively to discuss specific cooperation projects such as training high-end professionals, cooperation in scientific research, student exchange and language teaching.

In order to push forward exchanges and cooperation among their

universities, the three countries decided to jointly implement the "CAMPUS Asia" (Collective Action for Mobility Program of University Students) project, which aims at enhancing school competitiveness and nurturing the next generation of talent in Asia through multiple forms of exchange programs including mutual recognition of credits and student exchange. A trilateral committee for promoting exchange and cooperation among universities comprising of representatives from educational government agencies, universities, quality guarantee agencies and the business community of the three countries has held three successful meetings and reached consensus on the guidelines for the implementation of the "CAMPUS Asia" project, pilot projects and other specifics. The " CAMPUS Asia" pilot project was launched in November 2011. Student exchange formally started in April 2012. The pilot project will last three to five years.

At present, the educational government departments of the three countries are in close consultation in an effort to establish a tripartite mechanism of education ministers' meeting at an early date so as to further push forward trilateral educational cooperation.

3. Tourism

Thanks to the exchange mechanism which mainly includes the Trilateral Meeting of Tourism Authorities, the tourism departments and the tourism industry of the three countries have engaged in close and practical cooperation at all levels.

In order to implement the Joint Declaration on the Promotion of Tripartite Cooperation issued in October 2003, the tourism departments of the three countries signed a memorandum of understanding on initiating China-Japan-ROK tourism cooperation and formulated plans to promote tripartite tourism cooperation and hosting tripartite meetings of tourism departments.

In 2006, the First Trilateral Meeting of Tourism Authorities was held in Hokkaido, Japan, during which a trilateral plan of tourism exchanges was adopted. It set the goal of expanding the scale of tripartite tourism exchanges from 12 million person times in 2005 to 17 million in 2010. This goal had been met on schedule. In 2010, the Fifth Trilateral Meeting of Tourism Authorities set a new goal of increasing the scale to 26 million in 2015.

At present, six trilateral meetings of tourism authorities have been held. The outcomes of the meetings have been released as declarations or joint statements.

An exchange mechanism for the tourism industry was added to the Trilateral Meeting of Tourism Authorities in 2007. The Symposium on Educational Travel launched in 2006 was incorporated into the framework of the Trilateral Meeting of Tourism Authorities and has been held by the three countries alternately. This symposium has become an effective platform to boost youth exchanges in education and tourism and actively promoted youth exchanges through tourism among the three countries. This year, the Seventh Symposium on Educational Travel will be held in Sichuan Province, China.

4. Personnel administration

In 2005, the Ministry of Human Resources and Social Security of China, the National Personnel Authority of Japan and the Civil Service Commission of the ROK (now the Ministry of Public Administration and Security) signed a trilateral memorandum of cooperation on personnel administration and set up a trilateral personnel policy network to carry out cooperation in personnel administration through information sharing and other forms such as alternately hosting exchanges of young civil servants, seminars and joint studies. In August 2010, the Ministry of Human Resources and Social Security of China hosted the Sixth Meeting of Heads of Personnel Authorities, during which the three parties renewed the trilateral memorandum of cooperation on personnel administration, which stipulated that the Meeting of Heads of Personnel Authorities and the DG Meeting be held once every two years instead of once a year. Over the past six years, the trilateral personnel policy network has grown into a mature cooperation mechanism.

5. Health

In order to reduce the threat posed by infectious diseases to this region, the health ministries of the three countries signed in Geneva, Switzerland a trilateral cooperation letter of intent on joint response to the spread of influenza in May 2006. They identified addressing the spread of influenza as their priority cooperation area and used the opportunity to launch official tripartite cooperation in this field. In April 2007, following the initiative of the ROK, the health ministries of the three countries held the First Trilateral Health Ministers' Meeting in Seoul and put in place an annual dialogue mechanism. By the end of 2011, five such meetings had been held and three cooperation documents were signed, including a memorandum of cooperation for joint response to the spread of influenza, a memorandum of cooperation on food safety and an action plan for joint response to the spread of influenza.

With the inception of the mechanism of health ministers' meeting, China-Japan-ROK health cooperation has been gradually expanded from containing the spread of influenza to prevention and control of infectious diseases, food safety, health information and health emergencies response during natural disasters. The three countries held several trilateral food safety forums, forums on prevention and control of infectious and non-infectious diseases and engaged in cooperation in order to realize the Millennium Development Goals in the health-related fields in this region. In the wake of the earthquake and tsunami disaster of Japan in March 2011, the three countries agreed to enhance cooperation in post-disaster health emergencies and shared health-related experience in response to nuclear leaks.

6. Media, local government and people-to-people exchanges

Northeast Asia Trilateral Forum

In February 2006, following the initiative of the Joong Ang Daily of the ROK, the Xinhua News Agency of China, the Joong Ang Daily of the ROK and the Nikkei of Japan jointly launched the Northeast Asia Trilateral Forum. As a forum for eminent persons from the three countries, the Northeast Asia Trilateral Forum is aimed at promoting people-to-people exchanges and enhancing mutual understanding of the people of the three countries. Since February 2006, seven rounds of the Forum have been held alternately in the ROK, Japan and China. Ten eminent persons from the economic, cultural and academic communities of the three countries are invited to the Forum. Former Chinese Vice-Premier Qian Qichen and former Japanese Prime Minister Yasuhiro Nakasone used to be the heads of the Chinese and Japanese delegations respectively. The current heads of the delegations are former Chinese Vice-Premier Zeng Peiyan, former ROK Prime Minister Lee Hong-ku and former Japanese Prime Minister Yasuo Fukuda respectively.

Since its launch, the Northeast Asia Trilateral Forum has played an active role in promoting friendship, deepening mutual understanding and expanding exchanges and cooperation among the peoples of the three countries. It has gradually grown into a high-level platform for regular exchanges among the three countries, drawing wide attention from the political, business, academic and press communities.

Media

The People's Daily of China signed memorandums of cooperation with mainstream media agencies of Japan and the ROK. They have built relations of friendship and cooperation, conducted exchanges from time to time and co-hosted international meetings with some of the newspapers.

In September 2011, the People's Daily hosted in Changchun the first trilateral renowned journalists' roundtable dialogue with the theme of "China, Japan and ROK media giving strength to regional economic cooperation in Northeast Asia". Nearly 100 heads of media agencies and renowned journalists from the three countries attended the dialogue, which was the most representative tripartite media exchange since the establishment of the tripartite cooperation mechanism. It served to promote the exchanges and cooperation among the mainstream media of the three countries and enrich tripartite cooperation mechanisms. The dialogue will be held biannually.

The People's Daily has been hosting the 10+3 Media Cooperation Forum since 2007, inviting mainstream media organizations from Japan and the ROK to the Seminar. Four forums have been held since then, which had enhanced exchanges among the mainstream media of East Asia. The People's Daily hosted a trilateral culture forum together with Asahi Shimbun of Japan and Donga Ilbo of the ROK. The People's Daily also hosted several rounds of China-Japan culture forum and China-ROK culture forum with the above two agencies respectively, providing platforms for trilateral cultural and academic exchanges and promoting non-governmental cultural cooperation and exchanges.

Sister cities

Since 1999, the Chinese People's Association for Friendship with Foreign Countries, the Governors Association of Korea and the Council of Local Authorities for International Relations of Japan have jointly hosted the China-Japan-ROK Friendship Cities Conference alternately in the three countries. Participants are representatives of cities of the three countries that have sister-city relations who engaged in discussions about sister-city cooperation and experience in city development. Up to now, 13 conferences have been held. After years of hard work, the Friendship Cities Conference has grown into a mechanism of exchanges and cooperation for local governments of the three countries and an important platform for them to share information and expand cooperation through the ties of sister cities. The 14th Conference will be held in Kunming, China from 30 July to 3 August 2012.

To date, there are 247 pairs of sister cities between China and Japan and 139 pairs between China and the ROK.

Youth exchanges

China-Japan-ROK youth exchanges mainly include the Trilateral Future Leaders Roundtable Meeting (formerly known as the "Trilateral Future Leaders Forum") and the Trilateral Youth Friendship Meeting.

In accordance with the Joint Declaration on the Promotion of Tripartite Cooperation, the Japan Foundation, the Korea foundation, and the China Institutes of Contemporary International Relations jointly held two rounds of Trilateral Future Leaders Forum in 2002 and 2004 respectively. The All-China Youth Federation became the Chinese organizer of the Forum in 2006. To date, eight rounds of the Forum have been held. During the Forum, six representatives from each of the three countries (from the parliaments, governments, economic community, academics, press and youth organizations respectively) tour the three countries and have extensive discussions on the political, economic, cultural and social issues to boost mutual understanding, trust and friendship. In 2012, the Trilateral Future Leaders Forum was renamed as "Trilateral Future Leaders Roundtable Meeting", and events would be held in the three countries for the ninth roundtable.

In order to implement Premier Wen Jiabao's proposal of enhancing tripartite youth exchanges and mark the "China-Japan-ROK Year of Cultural Exchanges" in 2007, the All-China Youth Federation invited 100 youths from Japan and the ROK respectively in August 2007 to join 100 of their Chinese peers at the first trilateral friendly meeting of youth. This event was spoken highly of by both the Japanese and the ROK governments. After that, Japan and the ROK hosted the second and third Trilateral Youth Friendship Meeting respectively. Up till now, the event has been alternately held by the three countries for five rounds successfully.

Exchanges of Buddhism

Exchanges of Buddhism are an important part of tripartite non-governmental exchanges. In 1993, the then President of the Buddhist Association of China Zhao Puchu put forward the idea of the "Golden Bond" of Buddhism among China, Japan and the ROK, a concept that captures the past and future Buddhist relations of the three countries and was widely responded to and recognized by the Buddhist communities of Japan and the ROK. The three countries subsequently decided to convene a trilateral conference of friendly exchanges of Buddhism regularly. From 1995 to 1997, the first three rounds of the trilateral conference were held in China, the ROK and Japan respectively and declarations were released at the end of the conferences. The three countries sent thousand-member delegations to each meeting, making the conference the largest, most productive and substantive multilateral friendly exchange event in the Buddhist communities of the three countries.

As was proposed at the conference, the three countries set up a trilateral liaison committee for friendly exchanges of Buddhism to be in charge of implementing the resolutions of the conference. At the same time, the three countries also selected representative and authoritative persons to establish three window organizations in order to convene meetings of the liaison committee every year. The three window organizations are the Buddhist Association of China, the Association of Korean Buddhist Orders, and the Association of Japan-China-ROK Buddhist Exchanges of Japan. The meetings of the liaison committee have been institutionalized with one preparatory meeting in the spring and another in the autumn. In October 1998, the first trilateral meeting of friendly exchanges of Buddhism was held in Beijing. Up till now, 14 meetings have been held. In October 2012, the 15th Meeting will be held in Japan.

Apart from regular conferences, the friendly exchanges among the Buddhist communities of the three countries also include: exchange of visiting scholars and students to nurture talents; host conferences of academic exchanges and share Buddhist books and magazines to enhance information communication and sharing; organize pilgrimages to famous Buddhist sites; plant trees by Buddhists in their own country in every April to promote environmental protection; compile scriptures of Buddhism and publish them in the languages of the three countries; and exchange monks for practice and experience. By now, the exchange of monks for practice and experience between China and the ROK as well as between China and Japan has been held for five times respectively. In the autumn of 2012, delegations of monks from the ROK and Japan will come to China for practice and experience.