Many years ago, we were only able to build boxes. Today, architects from all over the world are working with us - Zaha Hadid from London, Gerkan, Marg and Partner from Hamburg, Kengo Kuma from Japan. We brought design and digitalization from abroad to China.
When you're a kid and you're in a classroom, anybody would die to be hanging out in London or having their sixteenth birthday in Japan.
India and Japan should develop a complementary relationship in information technology.
Chinas development is an opportunity for the international community, for Japan and for the Asia-Pacific.
I was born into a very important family in Japan. My grandfather was a descendant of the Emperor, and we were very wealthy.
Radiation doesn't recognize borders. A meltdown in Japan or India, say, is a danger to the whole world. Wind circulates the radiation everywhere. Water quality is affected. We all eat the same fish. We use products from all over the world - if something is contaminated, it will cause harm.
When did it become necessary to explain what's so cool about Japan? Everyone was quite obsessed with it 15 years ago. I suppose it's the only Asian country that developed an imaginary entree to me. That's why I go back.
Actually when I was wounded and recovering in Japan. I went to church there and I remember on the air base where their hospital was, I remember coming out of that church and feeling like I had been - at that point I just felt very, very close to God and that I'd done the right thing with my life. And I knew I wasn't going back to Vietnam. I just knew I wasn't going back.
Well, Japanese fans braced me since 1991 that was my first time I have been to Japan. So I know that Japanese fans has supported me over the years. So it just a lot of love and Wayne Wonder will release more music, more music and more music!
[ Bernard] Leach was the one who taught us that, because he, too, had started out as a painter and an etcher and had only gotten into ceramics by chance when he was in Japan trying to teach the Japanese how to do etching, which, as he said, they were not ready for yet.
Bernard [Leach] had acquired many [Shoji] Hamada works. Some of them, it was interesting - first of all, Hamada worked in St. Ives for about four years before returning to Japan to start his own pottery. He had exhibitions in London, and if these exhibitions didn't sell out, the galleries were instructed to send the remaining work down to the Leach Pottery, where they would go into the showroom for sale. If Bernard saw one that hadn't sold that he really admired, then he would take it (he would buy it), and it would go into the house.
It was there that we really first came in contact with the work of Shoji Hamada, who was Bernard's best friend from Japan, who had come from Japan back to England with [Bernard] Leach when Leach was establishing his pottery.
The Prime Minister [Shinzō Abe] proposed advancing to a new level of economic engagement, putting forward eight lines of cooperation in the most important and interesting areas both for Russia and for Japan.
There are also other areas. For example, culture. This is extremely important. We keep revisiting sport, judo, because I practice it, but other than that, there is also culture. Every year events that are in some way or other related to Russia take place in Japan.
We want full-scale normalisation of relations [with Japan].
Irrespective of when this may happen, it would not be an exaggeration to say that today millions of people living in Russia and, I am sure, millions of people living in Japan have an urge to get to know each other, cooperate and exchange useful information, as well as a sincere desire that all problems that still remain unresolved be resolved.
I would like to say, you know, that, unfortunately, we have many unresolved problems. But a great number of people in Russia know Japan and love Japan, and I am sure that eventually we will resolve all our problems.
The Prime Minister [Shindzo Abe] and I will negotiate proceeding from our national interests: the interests of Russia and the interests of Japan. We should find a compromise.
Notably, it was only possible [ negotiating on the Tarabarov Island], and this is very important, due to the high level of trust Russia and China reached in their relations by that time. If we reach the same level of trust with Japan, we might be able to reach certain compromises.
Next year [2017], we are going to hold a series of events there that we would like to call Russian Seasons [in Japan]. Over 40 different activities - and what is more, in different cities.
Of course, we will work towards that end. Of course, we will work to achieve this result. However, you have just mentioned the 1956 agreement, and one may recall that these negotiations were later terminated, in effect, on Japan's initiative.
In 2000 the then Prime Minister of Japan [Yoshirō Mori] asked me to return to this process, this conversation, these talks, and to do so, incidentally, on the basis of the 1956 declaration. I agreed. Since then we have conducted dialogue in this regard but I cannot say that our Japanese partners and friends have remained within the limits of the 1956 declaration.
Japan announced that it would not comply with this declaration [ 1956]. Later on, the Soviet Union also declared that the declaration could not be fulfilled unilaterally, by the USSR alone.
We are natural partners [with Japan] in the world and the Far East, but the absence of a peace treaty does not allow us to develop the full range of our relations. Therefore, we will naturally strive to sign this treaty.
By the way, Japan is also known to be actively engaged in manned space flights as part of the International Space Station.
