President Xi Jinping calls for friendly cooperation at Sino-Japanese event in Beijing
President also calls for more exchanges between two nations' young to improve ties
President Xi Jinping has warned against attempts to distort history in Japan as he met an influential lawmaker from the country's governing party yesterday.
Xi and Toshihiro Nikai attended a ceremony at the Great Hall of the People in Beijing aimed at fostering friendship between the people of the two countries.
Xi said in a speech that China would never accept words or actions by Japanese leaders that distort or embellish the country's war-time history and voiced criticism over Japan's past militarism.
He also called for more exchanges between the younger generation of the two countries, adding that good Sino-Japan ties could benefit not only Asia but the whole world.
"The future of Sino-Japan relations are in the hands of the people of the two countries," the state-run China News Services quoted Xi as saying.
Nikai, 76, handed a personal letter from Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe to Xi during the event.
The meeting came after Beijing renewed a plea for Japan to face up to its militarism in Asia during the second world war after Abe's wife visited the Yasukuni shrine to Japan's war dead, which also commemorates convicted war criminals.