Jiang made the remarks during a meeting with Soshi Sen, hereditary successor to the Grand Tea Master, Urasenke Tradition of Tea Ceremony of Japan, who led a 350-member delegation on a visit to China.

The tea ceremony, originating from China, has become a bridge of friendship between the people of China and Japan, Jiang said.

China and Japan, as two big countries in the Asian-Pacific region, have had a 2,000-year-plus history of friendship as well as a short period of unhappiness. The two countries should draw lessons from history and push forward bilateral relations in the new century, Jiang said.

They should work for the prosperity and future of Asia, Jiang added.

The Chinese president recalled his meeting with a 5,000-member Japanese delegation last year and said the friendly relations between China and Japan have a profound basis and the people-to- people friendship decides the overall relations between the two countries.

The older generation have contributed a lot to the normalization of China-Japan relations and the younger generation should increase exchanges and carry on the friendly relations from one generation to the next, Jiang stressed.

Soshi Sen said the friendly exchanges between people of the two countries are very important. During the current visit, the 100th of the Urasenke Tradition of Tea Ceremony delegation to China, members of the delegation came to China by sea to experience the vicinity of the two countries as a "narrow strip of water."

He said he was greatly encouraged by President Jiang's remarks on the increase in friendly exchanges of the younger generation, stressing that Japanese youths will work with Chinese youths to carry on the traditional friendship between the two countries.

Soshi Sen also handed to Jiang a letter written by Japanese Prime Minister Koizumi Junichiro.

(Xinhua News Agency 06/28/2001)