Chinese President Xi Jinping on Saturday showed up at a ceremony aimed at expanding the country's people-to-people exchanges with Japan, calling for friendly cooperation between Asia's two biggest economies.
Xi's attendance at the ceremony in Beijing's Great Hall of the People is the latest sign of thawing relations between Japan and China.
But at the event, in which senior Chinese officials and a Japanese delegation of about 3,000 people participated, Xi said at the same time that China will never accept words and actions by Japanese leaders that distort history.