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Last updated at: (Beijing Time) Thursday, October 24, 2002

Chinese President Meets Illinois Governor in Chicago

President Jiang met on Tuesday evening with George H. Ryan, Governor of the State of Illinois. President Jiang, who arrived in Chicago earlier Tuesday to start his four-day visit to the United States, was greeted by Governor Ryan on behalf of the Illinois people.


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Chinese President Meets Illinois Governor in Chicago
Chinese President Jiang Zemin met Tuesday evening in Chicago with George H. Ryan, Governor of the State of Illinois.

President Jiang, who arrived here earlier Tuesday to start his four-day visit to the United States, was greeted by Governor Ryan on behalf of the Illinois people.

Jiang said he was "very pleased" to come to Chicago to start his visit to the United States.

Describing Chicago as an important financial, trade, industrial and cultural center of the United States, Jiang said the Chinese government always encourages all its regions and departments to develop economic and technological cooperation with the American state.

Noting that remarkable achievements have been made, the president expressed the hope the two sides will work even harder to upgrade the mutually beneficial cooperation to a new stage.

On his US visit, Jiang said the present China-US ties have maintained a good momentum, and although there still exist differences, both sides share extensive and important common interests.

Cooperation in the anti-terrorism fight and economic and trade sectors have not only yielded huge practical benefits, but also been conducive to peace, stability and prosperity in the Asia-Pacific region and the world at large, Jiang said.

The president said that he will meet US President George W. Bush a few days later and expected to have an in-depth exchange of views on bilateral relations and on major international and regional issues with Bush. This will be the third meeting between the two leaders since Bush came to power.

Jiang said he believed that with joint efforts from the two sides, the meeting will achieve positive results and further promote the constructive and cooperative relations between China and the United States.

This year marks the 30th anniversary of the publication of the Shanghai Communique. Reviewing the past, Jiang said the two countries should increase mutual understanding and trust, and strengthen exchanges and cooperation.

The visit will serve to push forward bilateral constructive and cooperative ties, he said.

For his part, Governor Ryan said that as the Chinese people maintained their history, culture and tradition in recent years, they also achieved economic progress and social stability.

He said his state had undertaken fruitful cooperation in many fields with China, which served as the state's seventh biggest export market. He added he is willing to work with China to expand bilateral cooperation.

After the meeting, Jiang attended a grand banquet given in his honor by Ryan and the Chicago municipal government.

Jiang is scheduled to leave here for Houston Wednesday, to continue his US visit.

Following his US visit, Jiang will travel to Mexico to attend the 10th Informal Leaders' Meeting of the Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) in Los Cabos, from October 26 to 27.

Jiang is the fourth foreign leader to have been invited to Bush's private ranch since Bush assumed the presidency. The other three were Russian President Vladimir Putin, British Prime Minister Tony Blair and Saudi Crown Prince Abdullah.

Such meetings have been widely believed to symbolize intimacy between Bush and his guests and closeness and importance of their bilateral ties.

In an interview with the Hong Kong-based Phoenix TV channel broadcast last Friday, US Secretary of State Colin Powell said Bush is pleased with the way that US-China relations have developed over the previous 21 months of his administration. He said Bush sees China as a friend and is looking forward to receiving the Chinese president at Crawford on Friday, according to Xinhua News Agency.

Jiang and Bush are expected to discuss the Taiwan question, the linchpin of bilateral ties. He will ask the Bush administration to stick to the one-China principle and honour the three Sino-US joint communiques - the cornerstone of bilateral relations - and to refrain from selling advanced weapons to Taiwan.

Other likely topics include counter-terrorism, the non-proliferation of weapons of mass destruction, economic and trade exchanges, military ties and Iraq, according to the Chinese foreign ministry.

Sino-US relations have developed steadily since the two leaders pledged to build constructive relations of co-operation during their meeting in Shanghai in October last year.

In August this year, US Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage announced during a visit to Beijing that the US Government had put the East Turkistan Islamic Movement on Washington's list of terrorist groups, a decision that Beijing welcomed. The group was behind a string of violent terrorist acts in Northwest China's Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous region and elsewhere.

In late August, the Chinese Government released a set of rules on the control of the export of missiles and missile-related items and technologies. Last week, it promulgated another regulation governing export controls on dual-use chemical agents and related equipment and technologies. Analysts said the two sets of rules highlighted China's commitment to the non-proliferation of weapons of mass destruction.

Bilateral economic and trade relations have also progressed healthily. During the first eight months of this year, the trade volume between the two rose 14.6 per cent year-on-year to reach US$60.2 billion. China is the fourth largest trading partner of the United States, and the US is China's second largest.

At the end of August, there were 35,991 US-funded businesses on the Chinese mainland, representing contracted investment of US$75.3 billion. Meanwhile, there were 681 Chinese mainland-funded enterprises in the US at the end of June, with a pledged investment of more than US$1 billion.

Bilateral relations, however, have also been marred by some thorny issues, the most prominent of which is Taiwan. Beijing has repeatedly protested to Washington over US arms sales to the island and over senior Taiwan officials' being granted permission to visit the US. Beijing regards such actions as serious interference in China's internal affairs.


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