On November 18, 2009, Chinese President Hu Jintao and Russian President Dmitry Medvedev respectively sent congratulatory messages to the China-Russia Friendship Committee for Peace and Development (CRFCPD) on the opening of its eighth plenary meeting in Beijing.

In the message, Chinese President Hu Jintao said the committee, since its inception 12 years ago, has made enormous remarkable efforts for increasing the traditional friendship between both peoples and enhancing bilateral good-neighborliness and friendly cooperation by following the purpose of building friendship, enhancing exchange, promoting cooperation and achieving common development. It has also played an important role in pushing for sound and stable development of China-Russia strategic cooperative partnership. He hoped under the new situation, the committee would continue to work in line with the principle of the China-Russia treaty of good-neighborliness and friendly cooperation and take the promotion of China-Russia friendship for generations and common development as its own responsibility. He hoped the committee would bring into full play its unique advantage, build on the achieved outcome, summarize experience and forge ahead, to further expand the exchange scale. He also hoped for enriched activities and cooperation of the committee to make new contribution to pushing China-Russia strategic cooperative partnership to a higher level.

Russian President Dmitry Medvedev said in his message that the committee was an effective mechanism in boosting cultural cooperation and people-to-people exchanges, and it has made important contribution to broadening the social foundation of bilateral ties and consolidating the good-neighborly friendship and mutually beneficial cooperation. He expressed his belief that the committee's eighth plenary meeting would further push forward the implementation of all agreements reached by the two sides, enhance bilateral pragmatic cooperation, boost humanities and regional exchanges and expand friendly contacts among non-governmental organizations.

At the meeting, the Chinese Chairman of the committee Hua Jianmin, also Vice Chairman of the Standing Committee of the National People's Congress, and the Russian Chairman Leonid Drachevsky delivered keynote speeches respectively.