On June 3, Toshihiro Nikai, Secretary-General of the Liberal Democratic Party of Japan, delivered a speech at the second China-Japan New Era Health Forum hosted by Boao Forum for Asia (BFA) under the framework of Global Health Forum (GHF).

At the first forum held on December 22 last year, officials and experts from Japan and China had a very lively discussion, said Toshihiro Nikai. As a result of the discussion, China and Japan defined “health” and agreed to add "earth health" to the theme besides "human health".

The forum was not simply a discussion, where both parties also proposed the goal of building smart ecological healthy cities with Japan's high quality resources.

As we all know, the proportion of elderly people in Japan has exceeded 21% of the total population at present, and it is known as the "super-aged society." But Japan is also a society where elderly people can live vigorously all the time. This is the result of early testing of serious illnesses represented by health diagnosis and fine physical checks and the popularization of preventive medicine.

For theconvenience of the  elderly, Japan has established a nursing care insurance system, which can provide a variety of nursing services. We hope that Japan's high-quality medical resources can play a greater role in China.

With regard to the theme of "earth health," as Prime Minister Suga Yoshihide  stated in his policy address, Japan plans to achieve carbon neutrality by 2050. To this end, the Japanese government and the Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) are making efforts to achieve this goal. Within the LDP, we have established the Department of Carbon Neutral 2050, of which I am the director, in order to achieve this goal. We will consider the issue of achieving carbon neutrality from a global perspective. As in the case of "human health," Japan and China should establish a framework within Asia while complementing each other's resources.

The COVID-19 pandemic has exceeded expectations and significantly changed the structure of the world. In the post-epidemic era, I very much hope that this forum will provide new connotations and bring more new achievements for Japan-China relations.