MASAYOSHI OHIRA: POLITICIAN TO PROMOTE NORMALIZATION OF TIES BETWEEN JAPAN AND CHINA
(Xinhua file photo)
Japanese politician Masayoshi Ohira had made important contributions to the friendship between China and Japan and China's reform and opening-up. He spoke highly of China's modernization, and publicly stated that a more prosperous China would make the world a better place.
In September 1972, as Japan's Minister for Foreign Affairs, he accompanied the then Japanese Prime Minister Kakuei Tanaka to visit China. During the visit, the two countries signed the historic China-Japan Joint Communique to normalize their diplomatic relations.
In January 1974, he visited China again as Japanese foreign minister and signed the China-Japan Trade Agreement. In the cabinet of Prime Minister Takeo Fukuda, he served as the secretary general of the Liberal Democratic Party of Japan and actively supported and promoted the adoption of the China-Japan Treaty of Peace and Friendship.
In December 1978, he became the prime minister of Japan and promoted Japanese assistance to Chinese development, contributing to the construction of China in the early days of its reform and opening up.
