On the afternoon of December 10, 2009, Hu Jintao, General Secretary of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China (CPC) and Chinese President, met with major members of the delegation of the Democratic Party of Japan (DPJ) headed by Secretary General of the DPJ Ichiro Ozawa.

Hu said the two countries had interacted actively and their relations had undergone a smooth transition since the DPJ became Japan's ruling party in September. Hu said he and Japanese Prime Minister Yukio Hatoyama reached important consensus on furthering the strategic relationship of mutual benefit under the new situation, bringing the bilateral relationship to a new phase of development. China is ready to join hands with Japan to keep closer exchanges and cooperation in all areas and at all levels in the principle and spirit of the four political documents between the two countries. Hu said China would like to work more closely with Japan to properly address the major sensitive issues between them and jointly tackle global challenges in a bid to push bilateral strategic relations of mutual benefit to a higher level in broader areas. "The Communist Party of China (CPC) attaches great importance to friendly relations with DPJ and would like to work together to improve and develop party-to-party exchange mechanism," said Hu. He called for concerted efforts to make the mechanism an important platform for the two ruling parties to hold dialogues, enhance trust, promote cooperation and seek common development in a bid to boost the long-term sound and in-depth growth of bilateral relationship.

Ozawa praised the new achievements in China's economic and social progress and its important constructive role in international and regional affairs. Ozawa said profound changes in the international and regional situation offered a broad prospect for Japan and China to deepen friendly cooperation in all fronts. He said the DPJ has always taken the development of Japan-China relations as its own responsibility and would continue to make best of the party-to-party exchange mechanism to enhance cooperation with China and push Japan-China strategic relationship of mutual benefit to one new level after another.

Prior to the two leaders' meeting, Hu took group photos with the 500-strong delegation, including 146 DPJ lawmakers from the upper and lower houses of the Japanese Diet. The delegation is also known as the "Great Wall Program" delegation.

Wang Jiarui, minister of the International Department of the Communist Party of China (CPC) Central Committee, and Lu Hao, first secretary of the Secretariat of the Communist Youth League of China (CYLC) Central Committee, attended the above activities.