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Chinese Premier Wen to visit Europe next week

By Chris Buckley | Reuters

China’s Premier Wen Jiabao delivers a speech during the opening ceremony of Beijing high-level conference on climate change at the Great Hall of the People in Beijing in this file photo from 7 November 2008. Wen is scheduled to visit Europe next week from 27 January to 2 February 2009.File photo/Reuters/Jason Lee/China

Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao will visit Europe next week in a trip expected to focus on tackling the global economic crisis, the Foreign Ministry said on Tuesday.

Wen will go to Germany, Spain, Britain, the European Union headquarters in Brussels and Switzerland from 27 January to 2 February, ministry spokeswoman Jiang Yu said.

The visit is intended to foster cooperation “in responding to the current financial crisis,” she told a regular news briefing. She declined to provide a detailed itinerary, although she said Wen would attend the World Economic Forum in Switzerland’s Davos.

Jiang declined to answer a question about why Wen’s trip did not include France.

Beijing abruptly cancelled a China-EU summit late in 2008, angry over French President Nicolas Sarkozy’s meeting with the exiled Tibetan spiritual leader the Dalai Lama, whom Beijing condemns as a separatist.

Jiang said China hoped for good relations with the EU and approached the trip with “a positive and pragmatic attitude.”

“We take seriously developing relations with the European Union,” she said.

Beijing and Brussels are also at loggerheads over trade and broader human rights issues.

Copyright © 2009 Reuters

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