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LAST UPDATE | 17 Feb
TAOISEACH MICHEÁL MARTIN and Tánaiste Simon Harris met with Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi this morning in Dublin. with trade, the wars in Ukraine and Gaza, and the China’s human rights record up for the discussion.
Government Information Services said that the Tánaiste the the Chinese minister discussed a range of topics including bilateral relations, EU-China relations, multilateral engagement and regional and international issues.
In a statement, Taoiseach Simon Harris said the two had “detailed and constructive exchanges on a wide range of issues”.
“In my conversation with the Foreign Minister, I underlined the centrality of the UN Charter – and the institutions and bodies of the UN – to Ireland’s foreign policy,” Harris said.
“I set out Ireland’s long held concerns around the human rights situation in China, particularly around the National Security Law in Hong Kong, and the treatment of minorities in Xinjiang and elsewhere.
I emphasised Ireland’s long held view that all human rights issues of concern should be comprehensively discussed and examined within the UN human rights architecture.
Harris said their discussion “also focused on the situation in Ukraine and in the Middle East”.
“I asked that China use its influence on Russia to end their illegal invasion of Ukraine,” Harris said.
“Any peaceful solution to the war in Ukraine must be based on the UN Charter and must respect Ukraine’s territorial integrity and sovereignty. There can be no discussion about the future of Ukraine, without Ukraine.
“We also discussed the crisis in Israel and Palestine, including in the context of China’s role as President of the United Nations Security Council this month.
We agreed that the ceasefire and hostage release deal must be implemented and that all involved must meet their commitments, including further releases of hostages and ensuring continuing humanitarian aid into Gaza.
Harris also stressed the economic Ireland and the rest of the EU shares with China, and his desire to strengthen that relationship.
“I also took the opportunity to raise a number of trade issues of importance to Ireland and requested that the Chinese authorities allow the resumption of access for Irish beef to China. We also discussed issues on higher education links between our two countries,” Harris said.
Ireland exported over 3,200 tonnes of beef worth €19.7 million to China in 2023. Trade in beef was suspended by China for ten weeks at the end of 2023 due to the discovery of a case of atypical BSE. It resumed in January last year. However, trade again halted in October last year die to another case being discovered, and has yet to resume.
Harris noted that this year marked 50 years of diplomatic relations between the EU and China.
“We hope that further progress can be made on issues such as digital, trade, the environment, human rights and other topics, as building blocks towards a substantial EU-China Summit this year,” he said,
“Our meeting today underlined again the essential role and value of diplomacy in discussing both areas of cooperation, and issues on which we disagree,” said Harris, closing his statement.
Taoiseach Micheál Martin also met the Yi this morning.
Yi’s visit comes at a time when China is dealing with hostile trade and security policies coming from Western states and their allies. Yi attended the Munich Security Conference alongside world leaders last week.
This morning, a Canadian warship passed through the Taiwan Strait just days after US warships did the same, actions China said “deliberately stir up trouble and undermine peace and stability”.
Also today, South Korea blocked access to DeepSeek, a new Chinese-made AI product whose appearance on the market sent US tech stocks tumbling earlier this year because it cost a fraction of what US competitors spent to produce similar results.
“We hope relevant countries will avoid taking measures that overstretch the concept of security or politicise trade and technology issues,” foreign ministry spokesman Guo Jiakun said.
China has been subjected to tariffs from the United States since Donald Trump became president this year, while the EU imposed tariffs on the importation of cheaper Chinese electric vehicles last year.
China has promised to retaliate against the blanket 10% US tariffs and challenge them at the World Trade Organisation.
China has also played an increasingly significant role in the diplomatic arena in recent years, including mediating a détente between Middle Eastern rivals Saudi Arabia and Iran in 2023.
As well as this, the country has sought to play a role in a potential resolution to the war in Ukraine, while offering Russia an economic lifeline amid Western sanctions.
It has also been widely condemned for its human rights abuses, especially of its Muslim Uyghur population. China has incarcerated an estimated one million Uyghurs in “re-education camps” in the Xinjiang province in the northwest of the country since 2017.
With reporting from AFP
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A new time where we look east rather than west.
@Thesaltyurchin: that sounds like a great idea. Join the communists with the child slaves. It’s funny how everyone cries about France and the US plundering Africa for its resources, but ever since China start doing it, there doesn’t seem to be a word. Niger, Congo, Ivory Coast, Ethiopia, Kenya, Zambia are all billions of dollars in debt to China. China continues to take their resources like cobalt because the Africans obviously don’t and will never have the money to pay that back.
@Joe Willis:
So exactly the same as the US does?
And the European powers used to do
@P. J.: hence why I said the Africans cry about the US and Europeans plundering them when China is doing it the most of all now. Yet you will never hear them cry about China.
@Joe Willis: They wouldn’t have us, be very expensive with little return. Anyway, capitalising on these relationships doesn’t make you a commie, it makes you a free market capitalist (funny how these two opposites can be so close we barely notice). China takes these resource because WE demand it. The west’s hunger for more. More phones (Cobalt) more energy storage (Cobalt), laptops, wind turbines, medical applications and on and on.
@Thesaltyurchin: I never said it makes you a communist. I just stated what Xhina is. There party is literally called the CCP. Plundering these Africans makes you a corporatist.
Good man Langer, the chinese will like you cos you never listen to the people who elected you, ya openly lie and do whatever the highest bidder tells ya like bertie did back in the day, and are brilliant at denying events ever happening like say bailouts…..them chinese will think you are a great soft touch to use I mean be friends with
That a boy Michael
China is the future
Do your impression Micheál, “you Irish, good at software”.
They’ll understand him better than their own voters I can tell ya
If I’d known he was coming,he could have brought my temu order with him.
@Gearoid Conroy: LOL
@Niall English: Not banning anybody, just trying to make sure that the trade is fair and not subsidised and that products meet EU standards.
@Niall English: maybe because Temu and Shein employ little Chinese children in sweat shops to make the merchandise. If you support child slavery just say that.
@Niall English: USA doing it too- we have enough Chinese cheap crap -
2.56 euro per lb in china for Irish steak and 17 euro plus in Ireland ?????
Given their treatment of the Uighurs and the Tibetans I expect huge protests in Dublin today. Oh wait,
@Gerry Kelly: wheres the Free Palestine crowd now?
After all both groups are Muslim
@Jef Gert: Pro Palestine just means anti U.S. European tariffs last year not a whisper from media leftist ringmasters, US tariffs and uproar.
@thomas molloy: European tariffs were in response to attacks on the EUs trade system.
China has been hit with before and there some still in place!
@Jef pro Palestinian really means jew haters.
@Declan Young: no because actual Jew haters hate Jews for 100 reasons that has nothing to do with Palestine.
@Declan Young: No, it doesn’t.
@Gerry Kelly: Chinese ain’t Jews…have to say went on many a Palestine protest back in the day and found out a lot of the protesters dont care too much for the Palestinians, they just hate Jewish people….more of a reflection of their own miserable lives I’d say.
@Dere: Complete rubbish
@Dere: You obviously stopped going because you realised that it wasn’t an anti-Jewish protest, says more about you because not once have I met a person protesting for Palestine who is anti-Jewish but people like you are anti-Arab.
@Brian D’Arcy: he’s not wrong.
@Dere: Pure lies.
@Brian D’Arcy: He never went to a pro Palestine Palestine march.
Martin a disgrace to the nation
@N D K: worst in history, 2nd SH, 3rd LV
Harris: your human rights record is not all that great.
Wang Li: (nodding).
Harris: OK, now that I’ve brought that up how can we do business.
Maybe Martin can ask the Chinese to stop supporting Russias military manufacturing capabilities?
@honey badger: why? We’re not in a war with Russia. They pose no threat to us. I would fight neither for them nor against them.
Warmongering leeches in the EU and NATO are trying to drag us into something that isn’t our fight. It’ll end soon and your pal will have lost a lot of land while we’ve lost a lot of money.
@James Groden: The tragic irony of your stupid comment is astonishing. The warmonger is Putin. The fight was started by Putin. I appreciate that you and many other fluffers here would prefer if Putin could be left to his own devices, but undercutting Russias ability to wage war would ensure a swift end to this invasion. Putins’ actions are forcing Europe to tool up. His warmongering has added Sweden and Finland to NATO. He’s like a mafia version of Hitler, busy manifesting his own worst nightmares through his blind ambition. Tragic ideologues like you are an embarrassment.
@honey badger: The war will be over soon enough when the US and Russia come to a deal over how to end it. The US has already said Ukraine won’t be getting its territory back, Ukraine won’t be joining NATO so what’s basically going to happen is the US will tell Ukraine this is a deal take it or leave it. But if you leave it there is no US support, no NATO support, star link will be gone. It’ll be Ukraine on its own again Russia and Russia will eventually grind Ukraine down and take the whole country.
@James Groden: Russia does pose a threat to this country and the EU.
I suppose the people who warned about Hitler were bad people too!
@James Groden: well said
@honey badger: They are getting cheap oil and the upper hand in all trade deals, and Russia is destroying itself at the same time!
Great news for China.
@Gary Kearney: please explain how Russia poses a threat to us?.
@honey badger: Lol, if recent defense force murmurings are to be believed he’ll should probably have a list with him!!
@honey badger: Ya putin and your hero Netanyahu two modern day hitlers.
@Ger Whelan:
Maybe tell us what the deal is.
Trump gets into a cosy chat with his buddy Putrid.
They decide that Ukraine gives up their country,which they have fought valiantly to keep.
Trump gets to share with Putin in Ukraines valuable minerals.,and Ukraine can take a hike.
This is not how law abiding countries work.
Trump has told the world straight on,how he intends to own Greenland and their rich deposits
He also intends to own Gaza and turn it into a playground for him,and his rich buddies,and playboys, and to heck with the people who have lived there all their lives.
He wants the Panama Canal, and even Canada.
He has completely lost any scraping of brain cell that he has managed to retain.
The sooner both of these tie rants are removed,the better.
We are very privileged to be hosting top table delegates from China. American multinationals are being called back to the U.S. and we need someone to come in and fill the void. Lets hope our leaders and decision makers can put away the Kamela and Ursula von der leden hats this week and work for the best interests of Ireland and it’s people. We need another big, steady basket to move all our eggs into, and this is an amazing opportunity. Well done on getting the Chinese here in the first place, and good luck in discussions to keep them here.
@Paul Bannon: The finance side of the multinationals is being told to pay tax in the US. That will take years.
The manufacturing part is going nowhere, The US does not have the people to do what we can.
@Paul Bannon: Pure and utter nonsense from you Paul. China engages in currency manipulation, intellectual property theft and debt trapping. They are certainly not a “steady basket” to move our eggs into because when you move your eggs into a basket, it’s expected that the eggs won’t get stolen when you put them in there. We don’t need China, their country is collapsing and their “miracle economy” was built on borrowed time. Companies are pulling out or diversifying away from China due to regulatory risks, unpredictable government crackdowns and geopolitical tensions. The country built its rise on a mix of cheap labor, state subsidies, IP theft and forced technology transfers, but those strategies aren’t sustainable long-term. Not a single multinational has moved back to the US recently.
@William Jennings: I think he was being satirical here. At least that’s how I read it.
@William Jennings: if you substitute Ireland for China in parts of your post, it reads like the celtic tiger.
@Paul Bannon: no one has the authority to “call back” multi nationals. That’s a ridiculous statement.
@TheGood Feign: Perhaps, but we’ve reached a point in time where you can never be sure. This site has become flooded with pro-Putin and pro-Xi posters particularly in the last two years that haven’t a clue about how geopolitics works and think that the West is the ultimate evil and we should be turning our heads to Russia and China instead for trade and diplomatic relations.
@William Jennings: “china is collapsing” totally ridiculous.
@Thesaltyurchin: agree.
@William Jennings: your insane.
@Thesaltyurchin: The real estate market has completely collapsed in China. Evergrande and Country Garden going bankrupt are just symptoms of a much deeper issue, a massive property bubble propped up by speculation and debt. Property makes up around 30% of China’s GDP and the government can’t bail them out. China can’t keep you can’t keep stealing technology and expect to stay ahead forever. Other countries are catching up, and domestic innovation isn’t filling the gap fast enough. Growth is stalling, youth unemployment is skyrocketing (to the point where they stopped reporting it) and foreign capital is fleeing. Beyond theft and forced tech transfers, China struggles to create world-leading technology, especially in semiconductors and AI, without Western knowhow. China is collapsing.
@offside again: Wow, real mature response there buddy. The fact that you have offered no sort of coherent response to the points I made tells me that you know I’m right.
@William Jennings: no, you’re insane.
@offside again: For stating economic and geopolitical facts? It’s pretty clear that you’re nothing more than a pro-China bot. Just because you keep repeating the same incoherent line, doesn’t make you less idiotic the second time.
Very wealthy man meets extremely wealthy man
@SOCOMJON: dictator meets European puppy
I hope Martin brings him to that ol’ Chinatown area in Craggy island coz they’re such a great bunch of lads
The crawlers are heading all around the globe with the bowl of blarney soon on your hard earned money. Living it up.
Gaeilge lessons will be offered to Chinese national staff at Chinese takeaways.
Human rights with the CCP… f’ing LOL!
Ugh, if ‘higher education links between our two countries’ is anything to go by just look to the current state of the UK sector. Terrible idea.
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