President Hu Jintao joined a gathering of young people from across the Taiwan Strait in Beijing's Great Hall of the People on Tuesday.

The event included musical performances, interactive activities and an exhibition.

Hu joined young people from Taiwan in learning traditional crafts such as printmaking, and watching artists playing traditional Chinese music and Taiwan ethnic minority lyrics with bianzhong, a set of bronze bells of more than 2,000-year history.

After a puppet show, a form of art popular in both Taiwan and southeast Fujian province, Hu maneuvered a puppet together with a Taiwan youngster.

Hu also applauded young Taiwan performers after they performed a dance with electronic instruments.

Hu and the Taiwan youngsters also visited an exhibition featuring works of traditional Chinese art, including calligraphy, Tibetan thangka paintings and cloisonne.

After the musical performances concluded, Hu said young friends from Taiwan will surely benefit a great deal from their visit to the mainland, adding that he believed that they will realize that people from both Taiwan and the mainland share one family and are blood-bound brothers and sisters.

Hu said that free exchanges between young people from both regions were only made possible by the improvement of cross-Straits relations in recent years, noting that the future of cross-Straits relations will be in the hands of a younger generation.

Hu called upon young people to stand up to their historical responsibility of developing cross-Straits ties and engage in more exchange activities in order to "promote the rejuvenation of the Chinese nation."

The event is part of a larger mainland-Taiwan exchange program aiming to engage more than 10,000 young people from across the Taiwan Strait. The program kicked off in early July.

(Xinhua News Agency July 12, 2011)