Liu Jinsong, director of the Asian Department of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, attended the opening ceremony of the Sino -Japanese Cultural Exchange Special Exhibition
On September 23, 2022, Director-General of the Department of Asian Affairs of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs Liu Jinsong was invited to the Art Museum of Tsinghua University to attend the special “Aesthetics Across Two Countries: Cultural Exchange between Japan and China during the Han and Tang Dynasties” co-hosted by Tsinghua University and the Nara Prefecture Government of Japan. Opening ceremony and speeches.
Liu Jinsong said that this year marks the 50th anniversary of the normalization of diplomatic relations between China and Japan. Tsinghua University and the Nara Prefecture Government overcame the difficulties of the epidemic to organize this exhibition.
Liu Jinsong talked about the grand occasion of the statue of Jianzhen in Tang Zhaoti Temple returning to Yangzhou from Nara in 1980 to “visit relatives”, the earliest record of the Japanese country name left by the “Jingzhencheng Monument” in Xi’an and the sensation caused by the exhibition in Japan in 2005, the Japanese envoy to the Tang Dynasty Abe Zhong Ma Lu and Li Bai’s sincere friendship and poetic reconciliation, as well as the stories of the “Four Sages of Yuyao” Wang Yangming, Zhu Shunshui and other people’s cultural connection with Japan have left a deep impression on him, pointing out that China and Japan are separated by a strip of water, and peace and friendship have lasted for more than 2,000 years. The main theme of the exchanges is that the people of the two countries learn from each other, which has promoted their respective development and made important contributions to the progress of civilization in Asia and the world. President Xi Jinping pointed out: “The foundation of China-Japan friendship lies in the people, and the future of China-Japan relations rests in the hands of the people of the two countries. The more the bilateral relations are not developing smoothly, the more active people from all walks of life in the two countries are needed, and the more they need to strengthen people-to-people exchanges. to create conditions and environment for the improvement and development of bilateral relations.” Our visit to the exhibition today will help us understand the profound connotation of President Xi Jinping’s important speech. China and Japan should jointly promote people-to-people friendship and people-to-people bonds, and contribute to building a China-Japan relationship that meets the requirements of the new era.
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Yoshiko Kishishima, Minister of the Japanese Embassy in China, Masayo Arai, Governor of Nara Prefecture, Japan, Masayoshi Aoyagi, Director of the Kashihara Institute of Archaeology in Japan, Keiyuki Umino, the representative of Japanese exhibition planners, Wang Hongwei, Vice President of Tsinghua University, Executive Deputy Museum of Tsinghua University Art Museum President Du Pengfei attended the opening ceremony and delivered a speech. In their speeches, the guests expressed that this exhibition reflects the depth of cultural integration in the history of China and Japan and the Japanese society’s love and absorption of Chinese Han and Tang cultures. It is an important event to promote art, history and cultural exchanges between China and Japan. China and Japan should promote cultural exchanges at all levels and make continuous efforts to enhance mutual understanding and friendship from generation to generation between the two peoples.
This special exhibition displays more than 100 sets of cultural relics related to China from institutions such as the Kashihara Institute of Archaeology in Nara Prefecture, Japan, as well as dozens of cultural relics related to Japan collected by cultural and museum institutions in China.
