Zhao highlights people-to-people exchanges

Zhao Qizheng was best known as the voice of the Chinese government when he headed the State Council Information Office. He was also known to most Chinese as the planner of the economic miracle of Shanghai's New Pudong District when he served as vice-mayor of the city in the early 1990s.

But few know that the present chairman of the foreign affairs committee of China's top political advisory body, the CPPCC, has an unusual history with Japan.

At an interactive session with students at the University of Tokyo during the Beijing-Tokyo Forum yesterday, Zhao revealed the links that his family has with the island nation.

In 1904, Zhao's grandfather studied at Tokyo's Hosei University. He was among the first group of Chinese students to study in Japan.

"When my grandfather returned to China, he told my father about the merits of the Japanese," Zhao said. "He said they read a lot of books; they were very polite, and so on."

Had it not been for the Japanese invasion of China years later, Zhao's father would have fulfilled his grandfather's wish to study physics at the prestigious Tokyo Imperial University .

Although Zhao himself did not study in Japan, he is interested in Japanese culture. The family link between the two countries was renewed when Zhao's daughter went for a one-week exchange program in Japan after graduating from high school. She stayed at the home of a local teacher, communicated with the help of Chinese characters and English, and returned with some nice memories.

Despite his family's positive experiences, the outspoken Zhao did not hide his dissatisfaction with the lack of communication between the two neighbors.

"I once went to some book stores in Japan and found that 90 percent of the books about China were negative," Zhao said. "It's a completely opposite situation in China."

"No other countries in the world are as close as we are, but if such close neighbors cannot get along well, we need to reconsider," he said. The two countries should have people-to-people exchanges on a bigger scale to foster understanding, he added.

Zhou Muzhi, a Chinese professor at Tokyo Keizai University, who co-chaired the session, said Zhao's family story was testimony that the connections between China and Japan "are deeper than we thought".

"Zhao's grandfather was the first generation of Chinese students to come to Japan," he said. "I was among the first group of students to come to Japan after China's reform. So his story gave me this ineffable feeling."

Waseda University freshman Kazushige Fujimara will join a China-Japan youth exchange program in Hong Kong next summer.

"I agree that large youth exchange programs are necessary to build trust among people," he said. "The session today has stimulated my eagerness to visit China tomorrow."

Source: China Daily