Chinese President Hu Jintao (3rd R) meets with Makiko Tanaka (2nd R), daughter of the late former Japanese Prime Minister Kakuei Tanaka, and other relatives of Kakuei Tanaka, in Tokyo, Japan, yesterday. --Xinhua

Chinese President Hu Jintao met with the kin of China's old Japanese friends yesterday, the first day of his current "warm-spring" trip to Japan.

"Sino-Japanese friendship conforms with the trend of the times and the common aspiration of the two peoples. My visit to Japan is aimed at further enhancing the friendly feelings between the people of the two countries and push for further development of Sino-Japanese friendly cooperation," Hu told family members of four late Japanese friends from the country's civil community, who made outstanding contributions to the normalization and improvement of relations between China and Japan over the past several decades.

"Your fathers were all respectable friends of the Chinese people, and were founders of Sino-Japanese friendship. They firmly believed in building bilateral friendship and made many efforts and a remarkable contribution to the restoration and development of Sino-Japanese relations in the post-war period," Hu told the children of Kenzo Matsumura, Kinkazu Saionji, Tokuma Utsunomiya and Kaheita Okazaki.

The current situation of warmth in Sino-Japanese relations is the direct result of the efforts made by their fathers' generation, Hu said, adding that the Chinese people will remember their contribution to the cause of Sino-Japanese friendship for ever.

Hu also met with the kin of former Japanese Prime Minister Masayoshi Ohira, former Prime Minister Kakuei Tanaka and former Foreign Minister Sunao Sonoda later in the day.