Micheál Martin’s visit to China this week was the first by a sitting Taoiseach since 2012 and his hosts gave him the full, red carpet treatment. This included meetings with the top three figures in the Communist Party hierarchy: President Xi Jinping, Premier Li Qiang and National People’s Congress chairman Zhao Leji.
Throughout his four days in Beijing and Shanghai, the Taoiseach’s primary focus was on the bilateral, economic relationship, where Ireland is in the unusual position of enjoying a trade surplus with China. China is Ireland’s biggest trading partner in Asia and its fifth largest in the world and the visit highlighted its potential both as a market and a source of foreign direct investment.
Martin met representatives from 13 Irish higher education institutions who run more than 100 joint programmes with Chinese colleges. And he dismissed warnings that teaching Chinese students in Ireland represented a security risk, pointing out that universities in the United States and elsewhere in Europe also accept students from China.
In his meetings in Beijing, the Taoiseach heard one message repeated by Xi, Li and Zhao - a call for a new framework for the relationship between China and the European Union. EU-China relations have been troubled for at least five years, with Beijing’s support for Russia during the Ukraine war a particular source of tension.
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China’s ballooning trade surplus, which surpassed $1 trillion last year, is a growing headache for European industry as Chinese manufacturers produce high-end products like electric cars more efficiently and sometimes to a higher standard. The Taoiseach acknowledged those concerns during his visit to China but suggested that, instead of complaining about Chinese imports, the EU should become more competitive.
But – as the central theme of his visit was the benefits of open and diversified trade relations – Martin’s words might have carried more weight if they did not come at the same time as the Government voted against the EU trade deal with Mercosur.
In Beijing, the Taoiseach raised human rights issues including the imprisonment of former Hong Kong media owner Jimmy Lai. The 78 year-old, who faces a sentencing hearing next week after he was convicted of colluding with foreign forces under the city’s National Security Law, could spend the rest of his life behind bars.
Talking about human rights cases seldom has much immediate effect on Chinese officials, who are happy to argue at length about which rights should take precedence. But it is important for leaders like the Taoiseach to continue to raise such issues, not least because it tells those who are suffering from human rights abuses that they are not forgotten.
