By SHEN HONG And ESTHER FUNG
SHANGHAI/WARSAW --Chinese Vice Premier Li Keqiang will travel to Russia, Hungary and Belgium Thursday, while Premier Wen Jiabao is still on his own European tour, signaling an unusual focus of attention by Beijing on a region deeply mired in financial woes and political uncertainties.
Heir-apparent to Wen, Li is expected to use the high-profile visits to further boost his influence on global affairs ahead of China's once-a-decade leadership transition in the autumn and before he formally takes over the premier's office in March next year.
The highlight of Li's trip will be his visit to Brussels, where he will meet top officials from the European Union and likely discuss China's role in the unfolding euro-zone debt crisis. Wen has so far remained mum on the sensitive topic during his four-nation tour, but has nevertheless subtly reminded the Europeans of China's long-standing demands for returning the favor of helping to bail out the troubled continent.
"This is the latest in the whole series of trips that Li has taken to confirm or consolidate his credentials. The earlier trips were a test and they went well. The perception affirmed his status as the next Premier," said Patrick Chovanec, an economics professor at Tsinghua University in Beijing.
Li's first stop is Russia, where he is scheduled to meet both President Dmitry Medvedev and Prime Minister Vladimir Putin. He will also deliver a speech at the University of Moscow and attend the opening ceremony of a bilateral trade and investment conference, the official People's Daily Thursday cited China's Deputy Foreign Minister Cheng Guoping as saying.
After a short visit to Hungary, Li will arrive in Brussels, where he will meet EU President Herman Van Rompuy and European Commission President Jose-Manuel Barosso.
Calling the visit to the EU headquarters the "focus" of Li's trip, Song Tao, another Chinese deputy foreign minister, said further boosting strategic cooperation between China and Europe is a must, given China's own pursuit of sustainable development and the need to resolve complex global issues, according to the People's Daily.
While Li may remain as tight-lipped as Wen in public, he is widely expected to address issues such as China's further participation in the global effort to rescue the euro zone behind closed doors, analysts say.
With over $3 trillion in foreign-exchange reserves, China has given Europe a helping hand in recent years, actively buying Spanish, Greek and Hungarian bonds, and making huge investments in ports and railways in Greece. Beijing also pledged over the weekend to join in boosting the International Monetary Fund's crisis-lending capacity, although it hasn't specified how much money it will pump in.
During his own visit to Iceland, Germany, Sweden and Poland that started Friday, Wen has spoken only generally about the European economy, while managing obliquely to remind his hosts that China wants Europe to grant China the status of a full market economy, lift a ban on weapon sales and ease curbs on high-tech exports to the country.
Li is expected to repeat the same message, especially at the EU headquarters. When mentioning Belgium as one of Li's destinations, Song highlighted the fact that the nation is "one of the first Western countries that transferred technology to and established joint ventures in China."
The rising political uncertainties in Europe, with many governments struggling to impose unpopular austerity measures, may also give Beijing a unique opportunity to get its finger on the pulse of the continent.
"The geopolitical situation in Europe is changing, and China needs to update its European policy according to those changes," said Cui Hongjian, director of European Studies at the China Institute of International Studies. The institute is the think-tank of China's Ministry of Foreign Affairs.
Indeed, the People's Daily also described Li's upcoming visit as "significant on a strategic level" because China, Russia and the EU are "important forces for the development of a multi-polarized world."
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