China celebrates 30th anniversary of Sino-Japan ties Beijing: China celebrated the 30th anniversary of the establishment of diplomatic ties with Japan on September 29, and called once again for Japan not forget its wartime history.

Chinese Vice-President Hu Jintao said during a meeting with visiting former Japanese Prime Ministers on September 28 evening that China and Japan share the responsibility to push forward relations.

Hu said the process should be done by "drawing lessons from history and looking ahead to the future", the Xinhua news agency said.

He made the remarks while meeting with former Japanese Prime Ministers Ryutaro Hashimoto and Tomiichi Murayama, and former Japanese Vice- Prime Minister Masaharu Gotoda at a reception commemorating the anniversary of the normalisation of Sino- Japanese ties, Xinhua said.

The reception is part of a host of activities to commemorate the 1972 joint declaration normalising ties in which Tokyo acknowledged it was "keenly conscious of its responsibility for the serious damage" it inflicted on the people of China and expressed deep remorse.

Japan brutally occupied large parts of China from 1937-1945, a period during which, Beijing says 35 million Chinese nationals were killed.

While trade between the two countries has reached record levels, wartime history continues to plague relations, with Beijing believing Japan has not faced up to its history of wartime aggression.

Beijing has been angered by Japanese Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi's two visits to Tokyo's controversial Yasukuni shrine, dedicated to Japan's war dead including war criminals, since taking office last year.

But both sides want to see relations improve, recognising the need for good relations between two of Asia's most influential countries.

Japanese investments continue to pour into China, with two-way commerce growing to total almost $ 90 billion in 2001.

Hu was reiterating Chinese President Jiang Zemin's statement at a ceremony attended by 13,800 Japanese politicians, businessmen and tourists that learning from history will be crucial for the future development of Sino-Japanese relations.

During the meeting, Hu said he hoped statesmen and people from all sectors of society would cherish the hard-won results of Sino-Japanese friendship and take advantage of this anniversary to deepen trust and expand cooperation.

China on September 28 also unveiled an exhibition to mark the anniversary at the Memorial Hall of the War of Resistance Against Japanese Aggression in Beijing, Xinhua said.

The exhibition, whose theme is "taking history as a mirror, looking ahead to the future," traces the process of the normalisation of ties.