BEIJING - Wang Chen, director of China's State Council Information Office, on Sunday called for more efforts to improve the sentiments between the Chinese and Japanese people.

"People-to-people exchanges are heart-to-heart exchanges, which is playing an increasingly important role in the bilateral ties between China and Japan," said the official, adding that those are the best ways to deepening understanding, trust and good feelings between nations.

Wang made the remarks at the 7th annual Beijing-Tokyo Forum held in Beijing to promote understanding and strengthen ties between the two nations.

China and Japan have witnessed great leaps of people-to-people exchanges over the past decades since the normalization of diplomatic relations between the two countries in 1972, Wang said.

A total of 5.7 million Chinese and Japanese people visited each other's country in the year of 2010, compared to some 10,000 when the relationship was normalized, according to the official.

"We need to make more efforts to increase dialogue and exchange between the people of the two countries from all walks of life, to make more people become staunch supporters and enthusiastic participants in advancing the China-Japan relations," said the official.

Days before Sunday's forum, a public opinion poll on Chinese and Japanese's views of each other's country was released, showing that 28.6 percent of grassroots Chinese citizens have positive views on Japan, while 20.8 percent of Japanese have positive views on China.

The forum gathered some 300 participants from various circles in the two countries and they conducted dialogues on issues covering politics, economy, media and security.

The forum, held annually since 2005, is jointly organized by China's biggest English newspaper, China Daily, and Genron NPO, a Japanese think tank.