Visiting Chinese President Hu Jintao Wednesday met in Tokyo separately with leaders and representatives of Japan's major political parties.

During the talks, President Hu said that China and Japan, as close neighbors and major powers in Asia and in the world at large, share vast common interests in international affairs and shoulder common responsibility in promoting regional and world peace and development.

Promotion of China-Japan strategic and mutually beneficial relations is not only in the fundamental interests of the two countries and peoples and conducive to the peace, stability and prosperity of Asia and the world, but also conforms with the common aspiration of the two peoples and the general expectation of the international community, said Hu.

He said that China and Japan issued a joint statement on advancing the strategic and mutually beneficial relations, the fourth political document, which will serve as a guideline for the future development of China-Japan relations.

Standing on the new historic threshold, China-Japan relations are facing new opportunities for further development, said the Chinese president, adding that China is willing to work with Japan to boost political mutual trust and promote cooperation in areas of economy and trade, environmental protection, energy, information, finance and global affairs as well as people-to-people exchanges.

Hu said that while inter-party dialogues and communication are important parts of strategic bilateral dialogue, the two sides should make joint efforts to create new forms for exchange and communication, enrich their contents and raise them to higher levels so as to make new contributions to the Sino-Japanese strategic and mutually beneficial relations.

The party chiefs applauded Hu's visit and described the fourth political document as of historical significance.

They expressed their willingness to make continued efforts to open up new prospects for the China-Japan strategic and mutually beneficial relations.

Bunmei Ibuki, secretary-general of the ruling Liberal Democratic Party (LDP), said that pushing forward Japan-China strategic and mutually beneficial relations is in the common interest of the two countries.

Akihiro Ohta, chief of the New Komeito Party, said that the development of Japan-China relations is of great importance to the world.

He expressed hope that the two sides will conduct more exchanges of high-level visits, promote exchanges of the younger generations of the two countries, and enhance bilateral strategic and mutually beneficial relations.

The party leaders also wished the Beijing Olympic Games an enormous success.

(Xinhua News Agency May 8, 2008)