JCP's Fuwa to visit China from Aug. 26 to meet Jiang

Japan Policy & Politics, August 19, 2002

TOKYO, Aug. 15 Kyodo

(EDS: UPDATING WITH NEW DETAILS, BACKGROUND)

Tetsuzo Fuwa, chairman of the Central Committee of the Japanese Communist Party (JCP), will visit China from Aug. 26 to 30 at the invitation of the Chinese Communist Party's Central Committee, the JCP announced Thursday.

During his five-day visit, Fuwa, 72, will hold talks with Chinese President Jiang Zemin and other senior members of the Chinese Communist Party. He is also scheduled to lecture on ''Lenin and the market economy'' at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences in Beijing, JCP officials said.

Fuwa's visit to China is the first by a JCP leader since July 1998 when he went as the JCP's presidium chairman following the normalization of party relations with the Chinese side after a 32-year break.

Fuwa, a member of the House of Representatives, will be accompanied by House of Councillors member Yasuo Ogata and other JCP members.

The JCP has recently been active in Sino-Japanese diplomatic relations, which are marking their 30th anniversary this year. In July, the party's presidium chairman, Kazuo Shii, became the vice president of a group of parliamentarians promoting friendship between the two countries.

Fuwa was the JCP's presidium chairman until 2001 when he yielded the chairmanship to Shii.

The JCP had cut its ties with the Chinese Communist Party in 1967 during China's Cultural Revolution because it refused to subscribe to the Chinese request to adopt a Maoist philosophy.