On January 1, 2010, President Hu Jintao exchanged New Year greetings with his ROK counterpart Lee Myung-bak. Both sides also announced the official launch of the “Visit China Year”.
In the message, Hu said China and the Republic of Korea (ROK) are friendly neighbors across the sea and their relations have made much headway in recent years. The two countries have maintained frequent high-level exchanges, strengthened their political mutual trust, conducted increasingly close communication and cooperation in various fields and carried out effective coordination and cooperation on international and regional issues, Hu said. "During my visit to your country in 2008, we decided to take the Shanghai Expo and Yeosu Expo as an opportunity to set 2010 and 2012 as Visit China Year and Visit Korea Year respectively," said Hu. China is willing to cooperate with the South Korean side to make the Visit China Year a colorful and special event the two peoples warmly welcome and readily participate in, to enhance mutual understanding and traditional friendship between the Chinese and South Korean peoples and deepen the China-ROK strategic cooperative partnership, he added.
Lee said in his message that China-ROK ties have been developing rapidly since the two countries established diplomatic relations in 1992. Currently the relationship has been upgraded to a "strategic cooperative partnership". The two sides should continue to enrich the content of their relations, and expand cooperation on regional and international affairs based on innovation, he said. This year marks the Visit China Year as well as the year of the Shanghai Expo, while the year 2012 is Visit Korea Year and the year of the Yeosu Expo. South Korea thinks the success of the Shanghai Expo in 2010 will lead to the success of South Korea's Yeosu Expo in 2012, thus it will give full support to the Chinese side in its preparation, Lee said. He also hopes the two sides will take this opportunity to further expand people-to-people and cultural exchanges and practical cooperation, and deepen understanding and friendship between both peoples.