China’s next president will pay a state visit to Russia and three African countries, Chinese Minister of Foreign Affairs Yang Jiechi (楊潔篪) said yesterday, with Beijing looking to step up diplomacy after a protracted leadership transition.
Yang said the visit would take place “soon” and that Tanzania, South Africa and the Republic of the Congo would comprise the African destinations.
Chinese Vice President Xi Jinping (習近平) is due to be named president during China’s annual National People’s Congress (NPC) parliament session under way in Beijing, which will conclude the country’s once-a-decade leadership transition.
Xi took over as Chinese Communist Party general secretary in November.
Yang did not provide exact dates for the visit, but the legislature wraps up on March 17 and a summit of BRICS nations — Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa — that the president will attend in South Africa starts on March 26.
The choice for the new president’s first overseas visit appears to combine respect for China’s historical ties with Russia, with which it shares a long border, and Beijing’s increasingly prominent role in Africa.
“China and Russia are each other’s biggest neighbors,” Yang told reporters at the congress, at what was likely to be his last press conference as foreign minister.
“We want to work with the Russian side to seize the opportunity ... to inject new and strong impetus to the growth of the comprehensive strategic partnership,” he said.
Russia and China stand together on several global diplomatic issues, including the two-year conflict in Syria, where the two permanent UN Security Council members have blocked resolutions that would have introduced sanctions against Syrian President Bashar al-Assad’s regime.
“We don’t protect anyone,” Yang said of China’s position on Syria, reiterating Beijing’s stance that the crisis could only be resolved through “dialogue and negotiations” and not by military means.
He said Syria’s people were “bleeding and suffering” and that China was “distressed and concerned.”
The visit to Russia also comes at a time of increasing tension on the Korean peninsula, where the UN Security Council just slapped new sanctions on North Korea for its nuclear test last month.
China is the North’s sole major ally and its biggest trading partner, including being its primary energy supplier, but while it backed the UN move, Yang said sanctions were not “the fundamental way” to resolve the issue.
Since the UN resolution was passed, the North has responded with fresh threats of nuclear war, vowing to scrap peace pacts as its rhetoric reached a frenzied pitch.
The trip to Africa comes with China’s resource-hungry economy, the world’s second biggest, obtaining many of its raw materials from the continent and Beijing’s influence in it growing.
Sino-African trade has ballooned in the last decade and reached US$166.3 billion in 2011. China became the continent’s largest trading partner in 2009.
Chinese President Hu Jintao (胡錦濤) has overseen a deepening of relations with Africa, visiting three countries in 2004 and hosting a summit of 48 African leaders in Beijing in 2006.
“China and African countries are good brothers, good friends and good partners,” Yang said.
However, China’s emergence as a key investor in Africa has also been accompanied by periodic tensions amid complaints by some that Chinese workers are filling the jobs created by the investments.
While in South Africa, the new president will attend the March 26 to 27 BRICS summit in Durban.
SEEKING CHANGE: A hospital worker said she did not vote in previous elections, but ‘now I can see that maybe my vote can change the system and the country’ Voting closed yesterday across the Solomon Islands in the south Pacific nation’s first general election since the government switched diplomatic allegiance from Taiwan to Beijing and struck a secret security pact that has raised fears of the Chinese navy gaining a foothold in the region. The Solomon Islands’ closer relationship with China and a troubled domestic economy weighed on voters’ minds as they cast their ballots. As many as 420,000 registered voters had their say across 50 national seats. For the first time, the national vote also coincided with elections for eight of the 10 local governments. Esther Maeluma cast her vote in the
Nearly half of China’s major cities are suffering “moderate to severe” levels of subsidence, putting millions of people at risk of flooding, especially as sea levels rise, according to a study of nationwide satellite data released yesterday. The authors of the paper, published by the journal Science, found that 45 percent of China’s urban land was sinking faster than 3mm per year, with 16 percent at more than 10mm per year, driven not only by declining water tables, but also the sheer weight of the built environment. With China’s urban population already in excess of 900 million people, “even a small portion
UNSETTLING IMAGES: The scene took place in front of TV crews covering the Trump trial, with a CNN anchor calling it an ‘emotional and unbelievably disturbing moment’ A man who doused himself in an accelerant and set himself on fire outside the courthouse where former US president Donald Trump is on trial has died, police said yesterday. The New York City Police Department (NYPD) said the man was declared dead by staff at an area hospital. The man was in Collect Pond Park at about 1:30pm on Friday when he took out pamphlets espousing conspiracy theories, tossed them around, then doused himself in an accelerant and set himself on fire, officials and witnesses said. A large number of police officers were nearby when it happened. Some officers and bystanders rushed
HYPOCRISY? The Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs yesterday asked whether Biden was talking about China or the US when he used the word ‘xenophobic’ US President Joe Biden on Wednesday called for a hike in steel tariffs on China, accusing Beijing of cheating as he spoke at a campaign event in Pennsylvania. Biden accused China of xenophobia, too, in a speech to union members in Pittsburgh. “They’re not competing, they’re cheating. They’re cheating and we’ve seen the damage here in America,” Biden said. Chinese steel companies “don’t need to worry about making a profit because the Chinese government is subsidizing them so heavily,” he said. Biden said he had called for the US Trade Representative to triple the tariff rates for Chinese steel and aluminum if Beijing was