For a small island of just over 5 million people on Europe’s western edge, Ireland is playing an outsize role in the travel plans of China’s top leadership.
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Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi is to land in Dublin on Sunday to meet his Irish counterpart Simon Harris and the Irish prime minister Micheal Martin on Monday, off the back of a visit to Britain on Thursday and a frenzied weekend of diplomacy in Munich.
At the Munich Security Conference, Wang is expected to meet top diplomats from the United States, the European Union, Germany, Ukraine and others. In such heavyweight company, Ireland – a geopolitical minnow – stands out.
In isolation, though, the trip is easy to understand. Over a decade as foreign minister and in more than 70 trips to Europe (including Russia and the Caucuses), Wang has never been to Ireland, according to a database kept by Sense Hofstede, an an independent researcher on China.
In trade terms, Ireland also punches above its weight. It is one of the only European countries to have a trade surplus with China – almost US$13 billion last year, calculations based on Chinese customs statistics.
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Furthermore, with a new Irish government installed in December, Wang will surely be keen to press the case for maintaining ties with Beijing at an increasingly fraught geopolitical moment.