Chinese premier sees ‘huge potential’ in ties with Ireland

CHINESE Premier Li Qiang highlighted “huge potential” in relations with Dublin as the Asian nation announced it would allow citizens from Ireland to enter without a visa.

Li, on the first visit by a high-ranking Chinese official to Ireland since 2015, met with Irish Prime Minister Taoiseach Leo Varadkar and President Michael D Higgins for talks on global issues, including trade.

During his visit, Li praised the “close ties” between the two countries. He said that China and Ireland should work together “to uphold a free and open international trading system” and maintain the “smooth flow of global industrial and supply chains.”

After the talks, China announced that it will apply unilateral visa-free policy to Ireland to facilitate exchanges between the two countries, the official Xinhua New Agency reported. In recent months, China made similar visa announcements in relation to citizens from Switzerland, France, Germany and Italy, as part of steps toward opening up and facilitating more cross-border exchanges. 

Ireland was the only other stop on Li’s European trip to attend the World Economic Forum in Davos. China has recently been making efforts to increase international diplomacy as it attempts to reshape the US-led world order. 

Varadkar cited “growing economic relations” between the two countries, saying that Li agreed that China would reopen its market to Irish beef exports. Last year, China stopped imports of Irish beef after a case of atypical BSE, or mad cow disease, had been discovered in a cow in Ireland. China is Ireland’s biggest trading partner in the Asia-Pacific region, Varakdar said.

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“We want a very strong and constructive relationship with China,” Varadkar said after the meeting with Li. “One based on trust and respect, and one informed by our values and the multilateral system in which we are both stakeholders.”

He added: “Of course we won’t find agreement on everything, but I hope we will also speak frankly and respectfully to each other and candidly as we did today.”

Higgins raised human rights issues with Li, his office confirmed in a press release. It said Higgins referenced meetings of the Universal Periodic Review, designed to review human rights records of states and taking place in Geneva, and the points that are likely to arise during that process.