Port of Shatian, Beihai, Guangxi Province. [Photo/VCG]

Beihai, one of China's first 14 coastal cities opened to overseas investment, was a starting point of the maritime Silk Road as early as in the Han dynasty. Yatsushiro, the second-largest city in Kumamoto Prefecture and the central city of southern part of the prefecture, is where the Kuma River, one of the three most rapid rivers in Japan, empties into the Yatsushiro Sea.

Beihai has a population of 1.85 million, while Yatsushiro is home to 125 thousand residents. Though the pair is not prominent among more than 200 sister cities between China and Japan, the intensity of friendly exchanges between the two cities never faded since they became sister cities in 1996. Looking back at the 26 years of their friendly contacts while celebrating the 50th anniversary of the normalization of diplomatic relations between Japan and China, the two cities are seeing their relations shining as bright as fine jade and emanating an aroma as sweet as orchid.

In 2001, the two cities designed and cast two statues named "Bing Jia Qi Qu" (literally "galloping abreast," implying mutual help and common development between the two cities) in celebration of the 5th anniversary of them becoming sister cities. The statues, with a pair of seahorses in each symbolizing the friendship between the two cities, stands at the famous Yintan Park in Beihai and the Shinmachi Cultural Square in Yatsushiro, respectively. For more than 20 years, the two cities have remained true to their original aspirations. In 2020, when China was fighting against the initial outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic, Yatsushiro decided to donate half of the face masks in its emergency stock to Beihai, an expression of its good will featuring "pulling together to tide over difficulties." In 2021, students from the Beihai Foreign Language Experimental School and the Beihai No. 2 Experimental School sent message cards in both Chinese and Japanese to the flooded Sakamoto region of Yatsushiro, expressing their support and encouragement to local residents rebuilding homes and resuming normal life.