The Chinese President Jiang Zemin received a warm welcome in Venezuela on the last stop of his Latin American tour. The tour has been overshadowed by the U.S. spy plane collision, the prospect of American arms sales to Taiwan and a pending vote on Beijing's human rights record.
"It's a glorious day for Venezuela," a beaming Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez told Jiang at the airport. "We welcome not only the man, but we welcome the idea of sovereignty, the idea of justice, the idea of liberty, the idea of peace, the idea of self-determination of peoples.
"We welcome not only the man, but the concept of revolution," said Chavez, the leftist leader of a self-styled "democratic revolution."
Jiang responded by declaring that Chinese-Venezuelan relations had improved under Chavez and that he looked forward to discussing "bilateral and international" issues. "Thank you very much to all our friends here thank you," he said in Spanish.
Earlier, a Chinese diplomat demanded that the United States accept responsibility for the spy plane collision that killed a Chinese fighter pilot and stop reconnaissance flights near Chinese airspace.
Since the release of the spy plane's crew last week, the Bush administration has hardened its stance, blaming reckless maneuvering by the Chinese pilot for the collision.
"They must assume their responsibility," said Wang Zhen, China's ambassador to Venezuela. "They crashed into us, our pilot is dead and the family of this poor pilot is crying everyday. Who is responsible? The U.S."
Jiang was likely to find a sympathetic audience in Venezuela, which established relations with the communist giant in 1974. Chavez himself visited Beijing in 1999, denouncing "savage capitalism" much to his hosts' pleasure.
Chavez recently had his own brush with the United States over territorial jurisdiction. Venezuela scrambled two F-16 fighter jets when a U.S. Coast Guard cutter on anti-drug patrol approached but did not enter Venezuelan waters. The Oct. 21 incident angered U.S. military authorities.
Chavez also shares China's antipathy toward foreign criticism of human rights records. He recently bristled at a State Department report citing extra-judicial killings by Venezuelan police. He responded by reading an Amnesty International report on U.S. rights abuses on national television.
With China's bid for the 2008 Olympic Games pending, Jiang has spent much of his six-nation Latin tour lobbying against a U.S.-sponsored resolution condemning China at the U.N. Human Rights Commission.
A vote by the 53-nation commission in Geneva is expected this week, and five of the six nations Jiang has visited Argentina, Brazil, Cuba, Uruguay and Venezuela are commission members. Chile is not.
Jiang arrived to Venezuela from Cuba, where he agreed to provide nearly $400 million in credit and direct aid. Cuba is China's only communist ally in the Western Hemisphere, and Fidel Castro's government has looked to China for guidance since the collapse of the Soviet Union, once its principal trade partner.
There also was some speculation of a Venezuela-China arms deal after Chavez took a 10-minute flight in a Chinese trainer. Officials say a deal was yet to be worked out, but the two leaders are expected to sign other economic accords.
Bilateral trade totaled $350 million last year just a fraction of China's $10 billion trade with Latin America. China exports machinery, consumer goods and textiles to Venezuela and imports raw materials, chemicals and steel.
The state-owned China National Petroleum Corp. has invested in two Venezuelan oil fields, and China and Venezuela together are developing a tar-based fuel called Orimulsion.