To mark the 50th anniversary of the normalization of diplomatic relations between China and Japan, the Japanese branch of the Chinese Literature Readers' Club was launched at the end of September at the China Cultural Center in Tokyo.

Co-organized by China Educational Publications Import and Export Corp, Japanese publishing house Hayakawa and Chinese publishing company Eight Light Minutes Culture, the event had Chinese sci-fi writers Wang Jinkang, Bao Shu, and Qi Yue, alongside Japanese sci-fi writer Taiyo Fujii and Nozomi Oomori, the Japanese translator of Liu Cixin's The Three-Body Problem, as guest speakers to talk about their sci-fi creations and the influences on their writing.

Shi Yongjing, cultural counselor at the Chinese embassy in Japan, said at the launch event that "China and Japan both have a long history of translating each other's cultural works, and literature has played an irreplaceable role in cultural exchanges".

The launch of the Japanese branch of the Chinese Literature Readers' Club will provide a new platform for Japanese readers to learn about contemporary China, and will inject new vitality into cultural exchanges between the two countries, she said.

During the event, which ran for more than two hours, three Chinese writers shared stories about how they became sci-fi writers and their contact with Japanese sci-fi works, including Sakyo Komatsu's novel Japan Sinks, the cartoon adaptation of Osamu Tezuka's manga Astro Boy, the TV show Dinosaur Squadron Koseidon and the cartoon show Legend of the Galactic Heroes, which have exerted great influence on their writing.