The Emperor of Japan will make a good-will state visit to China from
the 23rd of October to mark the 20th Anniversary of the normalization of
relations between the two countries. This is the first ever visit to China
made by the Emperor, and we hope sincerely that this coming imperial
visit will further solidify good, friendly relations of the two countries.
(DEVELOPMENT OF JAPAN-HONG KONG RELATIONS COMPARED TO
JAPAN-CHINA RELATIONS)
2 Until the normalization of relations between Japan and China, for
Japan, Hong Kong was the only and small gateway to China. Japanese
who wanted to visit Beijing entered China through Lowu-Shenzhen
route. They walked into China over the bridge across Shenzen River
carrying their luggage. Government officials were not allowed to visit
China. At that time, one of the most important roles of the
Consulate-General of Japan here was to meet businessmen, journalists,
politicians and others, who had completed their journey in China and
returned to Hong Kong through Shenzen, and to get detailed debreifings
from them on such things as what the situations inside China were like,
what Chinese leaders talked about with them.
When the normalization of relations between Japan and China was
effected, some commentators predicted that, as the possibility of the
direct contact between Japan and China was bound to increase, the
importance of Hong Kong to Japan would decrease. However, this kind of
prediction was proved to be wrong. On the contrary, the relations
between Japan and Hong Kong have made a remarkable development over
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