extracted from Xinhua: “Chinese Vice President Xi Jinping arrived here Monday evening for an official visit to Turkey at the invitation of Turkish President Abdullah Gul.
“The main purpose of my visit is to deepen mutual understanding and the traditional friendship between our two peoples, and boost the friendly and mutually beneficial cooperation between China and Turkey in a variety of fields so as to better benefit the two countries and the two peoples,” Xi said in a written speech upon his arrival.
…
“We are pleased to see the continuous development in bilateral cooperation in the political, economic, cultural and other fields since China and Turkey established diplomatic relations in 1971,” the Chinese leader noted.
…
During his stay, Xi will meet separately with Turkish President Abdullah Gul, Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan and Parliament Speaker Cemil Cicek.
Turkey is the last leg of Xi’s three-nation tour, which has already taken him to the United States and Ireland.”
http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/china/2012-02/21/c_131421272.htm
Curiously, the trip by the president-in-waiting consisted of the US, Ireland and Turkey. One can only surmise that China believes it is already in close enough touch with the leading countries and wanted to take the opportunity of the return trip to include two secondary, but none-the-less important countries. Ireland because of its capability to host foreign companies at lower-than -average corporate taxes; and Turkey, a secular Muslim country on the border of Arab-stan weilding increasing influence in the Middle East.


Leave a comment