China, Japan, ROK work on closer cultural exchanges

China, Japan and the Republic of Korea (ROK) have made efforts to enhance cultural exchanges and cooperation in recent years, according to a white paper released by the Chinese Foreign Ministry on Wednesday. The white paper, China-Japan-ROK Cooperation (1999-2012), says the three countries have actively conducted people-to-people and cultural exchanges, expanded cooperation in culture, education, tourism, personnel administration and public health as well as cooperation among non-governmental institutions, and sought ways to boost the affinity among their peoples to build greater popular support for the development of relations among them. The three countries have put in place a regular dialogue mechanism of cultural ministers since the first trilateral culture ministers' meeting held in China, providing an important platform to constantly promote tripartite cultural exchanges and cooperation. The three nations also agreed to alternately hold a trilateral cultural industry forum, marking an "important cooperation project" in cultural industry. During the eighth trilateral cultural industry forum in Sept. 2009, the three nations established a joint working group for trilateral cultural cooperation, which was a new attempt to set up an inter-governmental cooperation platform for international cultural industry. In terms of education, the educational government departments of the three countries are in close consultation in an effort to establish a tripartite mechanism of education ministers' meeting at an early date so as to further push forward trilateral educational cooperation. Thanks to the exchange mechanism which mainly includes the Trilateral Meeting of Tourism Authorities, the tourism departments and the tourism industry of the three countries have engaged in close and practical cooperation at all levels, says the white paper. At present, six trilateral meetings of tourism authorities have been held. The outcomes of the meetings have been released as declarations or joint statements. An exchange mechanism for the tourism industry was added to the Trilateral Meeting of Tourism Authorities in 2007. This year, the Seventh Symposium on Educational Travel will be held in Sichuan Province, China. Meanwhile, exchanges of Buddhism are an important part of tripartite non-governmental exchanges, as they have set up a trilateral liaison committee for friendly exchanges of Buddhism In the autumn of 2012, delegations of monks from the ROK and Japan will come to China for practice and experience, says the white paper. The white paper also reviewed the outcomes scored in trilateral cooperation in such areas as media, health,and youth exchanges.