Chinese Vice President Hu Jintao urged young people from Japan and China to help improve bilateral ties when he met a Japanese environment delegation on Sunday in Beijing,Chinese state media said.
"Exchanges between the young people in various fields is important to enhancing Sino-Japanese friendship," Xinhua news agency quoted Hu as saying.
Hu was speaking to delegates attending the Chinese-Japanese Youth Environmental Protection Cooperation Forum.
He said that with China and Japan celebrating the 30th anniversary of the normalisation of bilateral diplomatic relations, it was significant for young people from both countries to discuss environmental issues.
"Environmental protection cooperation among Chinese and Japanese young people... will benefit the two peoples in the future," Hu said, according to Xinhua.
Among the Japanese group were Chizuko Obuchi and Yuko Obuchi, the wife and daughter of late former Japanese prime minister Keizo Obuchi.
Two former secretaries-general of Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi's Liberal Democratic Party, Hiromu Nonaka and Makoto Koga, were also part of the delegation.
(China Daily April 15, 2002)
