Fri, May 31, 2013 page1

• China’s Xi heads to Latin America, the Caribbean

  • AFP, BEIJING
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  Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) heads to Latin America and the Caribbean today, as he looks to keep on building links with the kind of emerging economies Beijing has cultivated in its rise to global influence.

  Xi’s visit to Trinidad and Tobago, Costa Rica and Mexico follows his first foreign trip to Russia and three countries in Africa — Tanzania, South Africa and the Republic of the Congo — shortly after taking office in March.

  China has embarked on a diplomatic drive since completing its once-in-a-decade power handover, with Xi’s No. 2, Chinese Premier Li Keqiang (李克強), visiting India, Pakistan, Switzerland and Germany, and there have been several high-level visitors to Beijing.

  

  This file picture taken on March 14, 2013 shows Chinese President Xi Jinping walks to his seat prior to the election for the new president of China during the 12th National People's Congress (NPC) in the Great Hall of the People in Beijing. Chinese President Xi Jinping heads on to Latin America and the Caribbean yesterday, as he looks to keep on building links with the kind of emerging economies Beijing has cultivated in its rise to global influence.

  Photo: AFP

  After visiting Mexico, Xi is to travel to California for his first summit with US President Barack Obama next week.

  China has in recent years aggressively pushed trade and investment ties with the developing world, particularly Africa and Latin America, to secure raw materials to fuel its economic growth and wield greater geopolitical influence in relation to the US.

  “While the US gets into China’s backyard, China does the same to the US,” Ding Gang (丁剛), a senior editor with the People’s Daily newspaper, wrote yesterday in the Global Times, which is affiliated with the Chinese Communist Party mouthpiece.

  Ding cited a recent trip to Washington by Burmese President Thein Sein, when the US and the former pariah state — long embraced by China — signed a trade and investment framework agreement.

  Chinese Assistant Minister of Foreign Affairs Zhang Kunsheng (張昆生) cast Xi’s journey in more diplomatic tones, telling reporters it “will be of great significance for deepening China’s relations with these three countries, and promoting overall cooperation between China, Latin America and the Caribbean.”

  The visit to Mexico, Latin America’s second-largest economy after Brazil and a party to the gigantic North American Free Trade Agreement, is the first by a Chinese president since 2005.

  Xi’s choice of destinations was “quite an interesting set of countries,” Zhang said.

  As well as improving ties with Mexico, “China has the possibility of trying to create a different pattern of relations” with other Latin American countries, based on more than commodity exports one way and manufactured goods the other, he added.

  Xi’s visit to Trinidad and Tobago is the first ever by a Chinese president, as well as to the English-speaking Caribbean region, Zhang said.
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