Mr. Song Jingwu, Vice President of the Chinese People’s Association for Friendship with Foreign Countries (CPAFFC), met in Beijing with Mme. WATANABE MITSUKO, the relatives of Former Japanese Prime Minister OHIRA MASAYOSHI and the Vice President of Japan-China Film Festival Executive Committee on December 18th. Mme. WATANABE MITSUKO visiting China this time was to attend the celebration of the 40th anniversary of China’s reform and opening up.
Vice President Song Jingwu extended welcome to WATANABE MITSUKO and conveyed the cordial greetings from President Li Xiaolin to her. Vice President Song expressed warm congratulations on Mr. OHIRA MASAYOSHI being awarded China reform friendship medal. Vice President Song said, the celebration of the 40th anniversary of China’s reform and opening up was held at the Great Hall of the People in Beijing this morning. Chinese President Xi Jinping delivered an important speech and awarded China reform friendship medals to 10 international friends, which aimed to appreciate international society for supporting and assisting the cause of China’s reform and opening up. Mr. OHIRA MASAYOSHI is a Japanese politician with whom Chinese People are familiar. We would never forget the important contributions he had made to promoting the normalization of the diplomatic relations between China and Japan, and giving support and assistance in the cause of China’s reform and opening up. The film exchange is an important field for the cultural and people-to-people exchanges of the two countries. We spoke highly of the active efforts Mme. WATANABE MITSUKO had made for a long time to develop the exchange of the film of the two countries and also hoped that Mme. WATANABE MITSUKO could continue inheriting the spirit of Sino-Japanese friendship and making more contributions to the cultural exchange of two countries.
WATANABE MITSUKO thanked Vice President Song for taking time to meet her and asked Vice President Song to convey her sincere greetings to President Li Xiaolin. WATANABE MITSUKO said that it is encouraging she was invited to attend the celebration of the 40th anniversary of China’s reform and opening up and received China’s Reform and Opening-up Friendship Prize awarded by the Chinese government for her grandfather. I listened carefully to the speech made by the Chinese President Xi Jinping this morning. During serving as Japanese foreign minister, my grandfather assisted Japanese Prime Minister, Kakuei Tanaka, in realizing the normalization of Sino-Japanese diplomatic relations. After serving as Japanese Prime Minister, he paid more attention to and actively promoted the relationship with China. I lived with my grandfather since I was a child, and I was unconsciously influenced by what I constantly heard and saw. Over the years, I actively took part in the cultural exchange of the two countries. At present, I serve as the Vice President of Japan-China Film Festival Executive Committee, which aims to enhance mutual understanding and trust by the way of the films and other forms that the nations like to hear and see. I would like to take cultural and people-to-people exchanges as carriers to make efforts to push bilateral relations for improvement.
