The Beijing News
May 8, 2008

China's president Hu Jintao is currently on a state visit to Japan. The visit resumed top-level contacts after a decade long hiatus and is being hailed by the Chinese media as a “warm spring" trip with the implication being that the harsh winter of the two countries' tense relations is now over.

An article on the front page of today's Beijing News reviewed a historical event: In 1984 China invited over 3,000 Japanese people to visit. The article is mainly based on an interview with Jia Di'e (贾棣锷), who was the Youth League International Coordination Department director at the time of the visit. Below is a translated summary of the article.

On November 26, 1983, Hu Yaobang, then president of China made a state visit to Japan. He spoke to more than 4,000 people at the headquarters of NHK TV and first brought up the idea of inviting 3,000 young Japanese people to visit China.

"The Japanese audience was very surprised. They were not sure if they had heard right, and thought the number he mentioned might be 30 or 300. They didn't expect China to take such a big move" said Jia Di'e, "Now in retrospect, China made the right decision. The surprise effect was just what we wanted. It embodied the Chinese people's resolution to build a strong and friendly relationship with the Japanese people."

"We had thought about something even bigger, like 10,000 or 30,000 ... But comrade Hu Yaobang was being very practical, he told us to do research. And we found that it was impossible to accommodate 10,000 or 30,000 foreign visitors"

Though the Japanese government responded positively to Hu's proposal, it was still a huge challenge for China — still relatively closed, and recovering from the economic stagnation of the Cultural Revolution — to receive foreign visitors on such an unprecedented scale: 217 delegations, totaling 3,017 people, including 63 were journalists.

"The most difficult part of receiving the foreign visitors was transportation and accommodation. Beijing didn't have enough buses, so we asked Tianjin to send over some of their buses. There were only few hotels that foreigners could live in, Beijing Hotel, Xinqiao Hotel, Minzu Hotel, that's all. So we had to use the Zhongnanhai State Guest House, and the guest houses of the PLA."

Moreover, there was also a shortage of interpreters, but the organizers finally managed to find more than 300 interpreters from foreign language schools all around the country.

Jia said: "The Japanese government wanted send a policeman with each delegation. We agreed. They wanted the policemen because they were worried that the visitors would be brainwashed."

Hu Jintao meeting Japanese actor Ken Utsui in 1984

"In order to avoid arguments, we talked very little about communism or socialism. We asked for instructions from the top about how to deal with sensitive issues like Anti-Japanese War. We postponed the visit to late September to skip sensitive dates like July 7 [the day of the Marco Polo Bridge incident, marking the beginning of the Anti_Japanese War], and September 18 [the Manchurian Incident when Japanese forces blew up a railway and blamed it on a Chinese warlord]. Comrade Hu Yaobang also said we should not completely avoid history, so we arranged four delegations to visit Nanjing Massacre relics. [The Japanese visitors] responded strongly, saying that now they know more about history." The Japanese also visited Chinese schools, factories, and Zhongnanhai, though "the route was pre-arranged".

"The Japanese had meals at farmers' homes, in factory and school canteens. They didn't have any problems with Chinese food."

The 1984 National Day celebration was the first such celebration after the Cultural Revolution [mass spectacle with a military parade etc.]. The Japanese visitors were also invited to Tian'anmen to view the celebration and the military parade. That night, a dancing party was held for both Chinese and Japanese young people. It lasted until 2 am.

"These Japanese youth didn't say anything bad about us after they went back." said Jia Di'e. Also according to Jia, about one third of the people in the 1984 group of visitors are now heading Japanese-Chinese Friendship Associations at different levels in Japan.