China.org.cn and the Japanese website Searchina will join hands for the coverage of the 2008 Beijing Olympic Games, the two sides announced on January 22, 2008.

China and Japan have close ties with each other. With the steady improvement of this bilateral relationship, the strategic partnership between the two countries' media will facilitate mutual understanding and promote the Beijing Olympic Games in Japan via comprehensive coverage of the Games' preparation and operation.

China.org.cn opened in 2000. It is a media website under the State Council Information Office that provides China-related news in nine languages to users from more than 200 countries and regions. Its upgraded special website for Beijing Olympics is China's only multimedia coverage of the Games in eight major languages. The Japanese version provides Olympics-related news, background information, photos and comments, thus opening a window and a mutual communication platform for Japanese people to the Beijing Games. It is highly praised by visitors.

As the biggest Japanese website offering China-related information, Searchina.ne.jp has 270,000 registered members in China. It has co-launched a Japanese Olympic website with China.org.cn and will present Olympic news from China.org.cn's Japanese version until the end of this year.

In March 2008 the two websites will open a new program -- "The Olympics through Beijing Residents' Lens", inviting users to record the Games-related scenes via camera phones and present a real and exiting Games to Japanese sport fans. In addition, this February, Searchina.ne.jp will provide Japanese tourists with selected culinary information in Beijing via www.gnavi.co.jp.

The cooperation will enable Searchina.ne.jp to obtain more news resources from its partner and China.org.cn will certainly expand its influence in Japan.

Huang Youyi, President of China.org.cn as well as Deputy Director of China International Publishing Group (CIPG), the umbrella organization that directly manages China.org.cn, and Li Jiaming, Executive Vice-president of China.org.cn, attended the press conference. Significantly, the two sides agreed to facilitate cooperation in other fields in addition to Olympic coverage.

(China.org.cn January 22, 2008)