By Xinhua,
Beijing : China’s President Hu Jintao said here Sunday he hoped to meet old friends and make new ones during his upcoming visit to Japan.
Hu, scheduled to go on a five-day Japan visit May 6, made the remarks during an interview with journalists from 16 Japanese media organisations stationed in Beijing.
Hu’s visit, the first by a Chinese president to Japan in a decade, is widely seen as a move to promote China-Japan relations.
The visit coincides with the 30th anniversary of the signing of the China-Japan Treaty of Peace and Friendship, one of the key political documents to boost friendly and cooperative ties between the two nations.
The year 2008 has been declared as the China-Japan Friendly Exchange Year.
“I’m looking forward to meeting my old Japanese friends and making more new friends during the upcoming visit,” he told the journalists.
The Chinese president said he believed the Japanese people shared the same aspirations as the Chinese people to maintain peaceful and friendly coexistence.
A Chinese youth delegation was already in Japan on a seven-day as part of an exchange programme that would see 4, 000 Japanese and Chinese youths visiting each other’s country over the next four years.
The delegation, led by Zhang Xiaolan, a leader of the Central Committee of the Communist Youth League of, consists of 200 members.