China-Japan friendship based on people's exchanges

President Xi Jinping's speech on people-to-people exchanges between China and Japan marks the latest effort by China to get Sino-Japanese ties back on the right track.

"The China-Japan friendship is rooted in the people, and the future of the bilateral relationship is in the hands of the people of the two countries," Xi told a gathering of more than 3,000 Japanese visitors in Beijing on Saturday.

History has proved that friendly relations between China and Japan benefit not only the two countries and the two peoples, but also Asia and the world at large, he added.