Japanese students gives out free hugs in Beijing

A group of Japanese students studying at Peking University have been giving out free hugs to passers-by at a park in Beijing. The international studies students came up with the idea in a bid to improve diplomatic tensions and rebuild relations between Japan and China.

The friendly gesture was well received after the Japanese students gave more than 30 hugs in as many minutes.

Ties between China and Japan have been strained in recent times with incidents such as the ‘Trawler Collision’ in 2010, where a Chinese fishing boat collided with two Japanese coast guard boats. The two countries are in a territorial dispute over ownership of a group of islands in the East China Sea. Japan calls them the Senkaku Islands and China calls them the Diaoyu Islands.

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