FROM EIR DAILY ALERT

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Biggest-Ever Austrian Delegation Will Make Five-Day Visit to China

April 3, 2018 (EIRNS)—Headed by Austrian President Alexander van der Bellen and Chancellor Sebastian Kurz, the biggest delegation the nation has ever sent to China, will visit Beijing, Hainan and Chengdu from April 7-12. Four cabinet ministers (foreign affairs, economics, transport, and environment) will join the delegation of 170 businessmen, 30 academicians and culture representatives. Numerous agreements for economic cooperation are expected to be signed during the trip. Machines and urban planning rank prominently on the agenda of talks in China. A new Austrian consulate will be inaugurated in Chengdu, as well.

Chancellor Kurz said that it is true that Austria has so far been underrepresented on the New Silk Road, but that that is going to change, and the scale of future Austrian engagement is “open at the top.” Foreign Minister Karin Kneissl, who this past September had spoken respectfully of “changing the guard in world affairs by the advancing China” in a book with the same title, reiterated that her talks are not only to take into account the role of China as a global investor, but also its increasing role as a political player on a global scale. In her book, she had provocatively written that young Europeans should go to university in China rather than Europe, because only in China, could they hope to learn something for the future.