The 12 students from Peking University were chosen in April after two rounds of interviews. They were selected for their strong interest in Sino-Japanese relations and an ability to think independently.

"Everyone was surprised that the event could be so successful," Guan said. "The presentations and discussion cleared up many misunderstanding."

He added that plans were afoot to hold a second forum next year, as well as to make it an annual event.

From the start of the project, Suzuki said she frequently heard participants express surprise when they found that their misconceptions had been shattered by contact with the other side.

"Each side discovered many things about the other that they simply could not have become aware of in their own country," she explained.

One Peking University student at the forum said he had previously refused to buy Japanese products. He said his visit to Japan had changed his mind, and opened him up to the benefits to co-operation between two countries.

Another Chinese student, for whom the Jing Forum was his first opportunity to travel overseas, provoked laughter from the audience when he confessed that he had expected his Japanese contemporaries to be nationalistic and militaristic.

This view of the Japanese is by no means uncommon among young people in China today. The laughter it drew from both the Chinese and Japanese delegations at the forum revealed how easily such misconceptions can be dispelled.

The students recalled that the initial contact over the Internet was difficult during the early months of the project, with exchanges hampered by negative mutual perceptions.

But the first face-to-face contacts changed that, explained Suzuki, adding that misunderstandings between the two sides were quickly identified and resolved, and the students were eager to get to know each other.

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