Keeping friendly relations between Japan and China benefits the Asia-Pacific areas and the rest of the world, said Tanino Sakutaro, Japan's ambassador to China.

"Prime Minister Yoshiro Mori and the Japanese people are looking forward to Premier Zhu Rongji's up-coming visit to Japan,'' Tanino said in an exclusive interview before he left for Japan to prepare for Zhu's visit.

He said Japan highly valued its relations with China, noting that he believed Zhu's visit will further promote bilateral relations.

Tanino pointed out that many issues will be touched upon between the two prime ministers, such as strengthening bilateral economic cooperation, the situation in the Korea Peninsula and the reform of the United Nations.

He said that the Japanese government will continue to pursue the friendly policy toward China, and support China's reform, opening-up and modernization drive.

"Japan and China will jointly work for solving the poverty problem in Africa and expand the cooperation on environmental protection,'' the ambassador said.

He said that the two countries should develop the future relations in the spirit of mutual trust and understanding.

Admitting that there are some problems existing in bilateral relations, he emphasized that keeping healthy and friendly ties is the main stream of bilateral relations.

"It is very important to peace and prosperity in Asia,'' he said.

Meanwhile, Tanino indicated that with the speeding up of economic globalization and China's entry into the World Trade Organization, both Japan and China face great opportunities and challenges.

Further development of bilateral economic cooperation is an important part of friendly cooperation between the two countries, he said, adding that such a move is in the interest of the peoples of both countries and is beneficial to the development and prosperity of the Asian economy.

In recent years, the economic cooperation between China and Japan covers an increasingly widening range such as transportation, energy, telecommunications, education, medicine, agriculture and water conservancy, environmental protection, social security and public infrastructure, with related projects carried out in all the provinces, autonomous regions and municipalities on the Chinese mainland.

"We are also glad to see that the exchange activities in education and culture are maintaining their booming trend,'' Tanino said.

The number of Japanese tourists to visit China is expected to reach 1.5 million, according to the ambassador.

Tanino said that Japan suggested China, Japan, Russia and the US establish a group to study the problems of Northeast Asia.

(People’s Daily 10/11/2000)