friendship football match between the Chinese & Japanese students Invited by the CPAFFC, a 98-member Japanese high school student delegation led by Yuichi Sakuraoka, President of the Fukushima Football Association, made a cultural and sports study tour of Weifang, Shandong Province from December 9 to 11, 2011. It was ice-cold on the morning of December 10, with the previous day’s snow still lying on the ground. However, this did not deter the players involved in two friendly matches being staged on the fields of Shandong Luneng Taishan Football School. The students of Japanese high schools and the Luneng school formed four teams composed of five Japanese and Chinese players each, along with either a Japanese or a Chinese goalkeeper. When interviewed by a reporter, Kyohei Ishikawa, a student from the Miyagi Prefectural Ishinomaki Nishi High School, said “Through the matches, we have learned new skills. We don’t understand each other’s language, but football has no national boundaries. We cooperated very well with gestures and facial expressions. I will always remember these matches”. Li Xiang, a Luneng student, who had received football training since early childhood, told the reporter he and his fellow students were keen to join a professional football team in the future through hard training, while the Japanese seemed to be playing purely for pleasure. “This idea of enjoying sports will have important influence in my future life. ”  On December 10 and 11, the Japanese students and students of the Weifang No. 1 Middle School carried out cultural exchange activities as well as holding a get-together. The Chinese students put on a rich and colorful cultural show, while the Japanese performed the traditional dance—Iwashiro dance, in which the Chinese later joined in a warm and lively atmosphere. Hayato Yoshida, from the Fukushima Prefectural Taira Technical High School, and Dai Yueyu, from the Weifang No.1 Middle School, became good friends. Dai Yueyu played the cucurbit flute for Yoshida and, in a mixture of English and broken Japanese, explained how the flute originated from Yunnan. To let the Japanese student know more about the Weifang kite culture, Dai’s parents took him to visit the Weifang World Kite Museum and the Yangjiabu Folk Art Grand View Garden and taught him how to fly a kite. Dai’s grandma taught the Japanese youth how to make jiaozi—Chinese dumpling. At parting, the two pals hugged and promised to become lifetime friend. A total of 80 Japanese students lived with families of the students of the Weifang No. 1 Middle School, experiencing Chinese family culture. These activities have left fond memories on them and boosted mutual understanding and friendship between the youth of the two countries. If this event can be regarded as a seed, it will surely take root and become a towering tree of China-Japan friendship.

The First BRICS Friendship Cities and Local Governments Cooperation Forum opened in the beach-side resort of Sanya, Hainan Province on December 2, 2011. Jointly sponsored by the CPAFFC and the China International Friendship Cities Association (CIFCA), the forum focused on deepening cooperation between the world’s five major emerging economies with “Broad Vision, Shared Prosperity, Developing Friendship Cities, Promoting Cooperation” as the theme. Over 300 politicians, scholars and business people from the five BRICS countries—Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa—met at the two-day forum to foster further communications and discuss shared concerns amid global uncertainties. Lu Yongxiang, Vice Chairman of the NPC Standing Committee; Bai Lichen, Vice Chairman of the CPPCC National Committee; Cheng Siwei, former Vice Chairman of the NPC Standing Committee, Xu Kuangdi, former Vice Chairman of the CPPCC National Committee; CPAFFC President Li Xiaolin; CIFCA President Chen Haosu; Jiang Sixian, Deputy Governor of Hainan; Alberto Kleiman, Chief of the International Advisory of the Under Secretariat of Federative Affairs of the Secretariat of Institutional Relations of the Presidency of the Republic of Brazil; Moema Isabel Passos Gramacho, Mayor of Lauro de Freitas in Brazil; Russian Ambassador to China Sergey Razov; Sergey Paramonov, Executive Vice President of Russian International Friendship Cities Association; Davanagere H. S. Murthy, Chairman of the Karnataka Legislative Council of India; Soviet Lekganyane, MEC of Limpopo, and Nomusa Dube, MEC of Kwazulu-Natal Province of South Africa, and diplomats of the BRICS countries attended the opening ceremony and the keynote speech session. Five panel discussions on food safety, financial crisis, eco-friendly urban development, energy strategies, and cultural communication were held. The participants agreed that as the world multipolarization and economic globalization were developing in depth, it was of great importance for the BRICS countries to strengthen cooperation, open up new fields of cooperation and borrow each other’s successful experiences to explore new ways and models of development and increase cities’ sustainability. Cooperation and exchanges between friendship cities provided an important channel to achieve this goal. They pledged to work with concerted efforts to promote bilateral and multilateral exchanges between friendship cities and cooperation between local governments, making positive contributions to world peace and prosperity. The forum concluded with the establishment of the mechanism of BRICS Friendship Cities and Local Governments Cooperation Forum and the adoption of the First BRICS Friendship Cities and Local Governments Cooperation Declaration. The next forum will be held in India in 2012.