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SAN JOSE: Chinese President Hu Jintao headed to Cuba Monday for the second leg of a Latin America tour that began with the launch of free trade talks with Costa Rica.
The trip came as China expands its diplomacy and investment on the whole continent, with an eye on natural resources and developing markets for manufactured goods and even weapons.
Hu was due to arrive in Havana late Monday for a two-day visit, following a G-20 meeting in Washington, and before heading to an Asia-Pacific summit in Peru on November 22.
Hu's symbolic stopover in Costa Rica was the highest-level visit by a Chinese official to the Central American country and came a little over a year after San Jose gave up six decades of ties with Taiwan.
"The development of cooperation and friendship between China and Costa Rica meets the fundamental interests of our people and will also support different sectors of our societies," Hu said after launching the free trade talks with President Oscar Arias.
The talks were due to start January 19, 2009, in San Jose and end before Arias leaves office in May 2010.
Hu and Arias, who visited China last year, also oversaw the signing of 11 cooperation deals, from setting up a Chinese language institute to opening a line of US$40 million in credit from China.
They agreed to set up a joint venture including China's National Petroleum Corporation to help modernise Costa Rica's state-owned oil refinery, with an investment of up to US$1.2 billion.
Hu's visit made the point that Central America was no longer a Taiwanese stronghold, after Costa Rica became the first country in the region to establish diplomatic ties with China on June 1, 2007.
Both Taiwan - a democratic self-ruled island that Beijing considers part of its territory awaiting reunification - and China have been accused of using so-called "dollar diplomacy" to get nations to ally with them.
But Taiwan has lost allies in recent years.
Part of China's incentives for Costa Rica's recognition came from its enormous foreign exchange reserves with an offer to buy US$300 million in bonds. It also donated more than US$100 million to build a new national stadium.
Costa Rica is only the third Latin American country to negotiate a free trade deal with China, after Chile and Peru, which may conclude its accord during Hu's visit later this month.
A major exporter of computer components, Costa Rica has dismissed fears of an invasion of Chinese products into the country as it seeks to diversify ties amid worldwide financial woes.
Its main trade partner is the United States.
Hu headed to Cuba less than two weeks before the arrival of Russian President Dmitry Medvedev.
China offered key support to former Cuban leader Fidel Castro when Cuba fell into dire economic straits after the 1991 breakup of the former Soviet Union, forging a divide with Russia.
China was Cuba's second business partner, after Venezuela, in 2007 with US$2.7 billion of combined trade, and one of its main creditors.
"This visit is an expression of the excellent existing links between both parties and governments," said a statement published in Cuba's official government paper Granma on Monday.
- AFP/yb
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