China party leader, PGMA meeting in Manila next week

By Gloria Jane Baylon

MANILA, July 5 (PNA) — A ranking member of the Communist Party of China (CPC) in Beijing is scheduled to visit Manila next week for what the Chinese embassy has described as “high-level exchanges” with Philippine leaders, including one with President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo on July 8.

Liu Qi, member of the Political Bureau of the Central Committee of the CPC and secretary of its Beijing Municipal Committee, will visit on July 7 and 8, “spearheading another round of high-level exchanges between China and the Philippines and giving a boost to a stronger China-Philippines relationship,” said the embassy’s deputy political secretary and spokesperson, Ethan Sun Yi.

It will be the first such high-level “goodwill visit” from Beijing since the posting in Manila of Ambassador Liu Jianchao, a long-time former spokesman of the China Foreign Ministry.

Qi will first meet with House Speaker Prospero Nograles on the evening of his arrival on July 7.

On Wednesday, the CPC official would lunch with Senate President Juan Ponce Enrile and pay a visit with Mayor Alfredo Lim of the City of Manila, Beijing’s sister city since 2002.

Accompanied by Ambassador Liu, the visitor will proceed to Malacanang for a meeting with President Arroyo, the Chinese embassy said. (PNA)