China hopes to improve ties with Japan via party exchanges: official

A senior Communist Party of China (CPC) official said on June 29 that he hopes the exchanges between the CPC and Japanese parties will help push Sino-Japanese ties out of difficulties and toward steady development.

Wang Jiarui, head of the International Department of the CPC Central Committee, said that when bilateral ties face difficulties and problems, frank dialogue between the statesmen of the two countries is more needed than before.

"In such a context, it's very important for the two sides to sit down via the party-to-party channel and carry out in-depth discussions," Wang said.

Earlier this year, the CPC received several Japanese party representatives such as Takebe Tsutomu of the Liberal Democratic Party and Fuyushiba Tetsuzo of the Komei Party and former Secretary General of the Japanese Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) Koichi Kato.

The Communist Party of China (CPC) has forged relations with more than 400 political parties or organizations in more than 160 countries or regions, Wang said.

Wang said the CPC's exchanges with other foreign political parties will help promote the settlement of international hot issues.

He mentioned his visit to the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK) in February this year, saying that through the contacts between the officials of the CPC and the Workers' Party of the DPRK during the visit, they had the chance to exchange views on the Korean Peninsular nuclear issue. In particular, he conveyed a message from Hu Jintao, general secretary of the CPC Central Committee, to his DPRK counterpart Kim Jong-il and had a four-hour conversation with him.

Wang said the CPC also established relations with parties in those countries which have no diplomatic ties with China. According to Wang, such party-to-party relations helped forge friendship between China and those countries.

Source: Xinhua