Zhu's visit to strengthen economic ties
The Jakarta Post, Jakarta
Aimed at solidifying relations between the two largest countries in East Asia, China's Prime Minister Zhu Rongji pays a five-day state visit to Indonesia beginning on Wednesday.
Zhu's visit, the first by a Chinese prime minister in the past 11 years, is expected to bring pledges of financial assistance to Indonesia and to focus on strengthening economic ties between the "two giants" of the region.
Zhu, born on Oct. 1, 1928, is known as a technocrat who has helped bring about substantial economic progress to the world's largest communist country after he was appointed premier on March 17, 1998.
Joining the communist party in 1949, Zhu, who was a graduate of prestigious Tsinghua University, Beijing, earned the favor of then Chinese paramount leader Deng Xiaoping when Zhu was mayor of Shanghai. Zhu's reform measures turned out to be effective in reducing the number of inefficient civil servants and inflation as well as in fixing state-run enterprises, which had been operating in the red.
Zhu's visit, from Nov. 7 through Nov. 11, is seen as a great stride in bilateral relations between the countries, which resumed full diplomatic ties in August 1990, after being frozen for more than two decades in the wake of the September 1965 abortive coup allegedly launched by the Indonesian Communist Party.
Besides meeting President Megawati Soekarnoputri, Zhu is also slated to meet with the People's Consultative Assembly Speaker Amien Rais and House of Representatives Speaker Akbar Tandjung.
Among the agreements that are expected to be signed during his visit is cooperation on tourism, which will make Indonesia one of the leading tourist destinations for Chinese travelers. It is also expected that China will give financial assistance to the Jakarta government, though the amount has yet to be finalized by Beijing.
Zhu will also strive for the reopening of the Bank of China, which was closed after the suspension of diplomatic ties in 1967.
The Chinese premier will visit the ancient Javanese city of Yogyakarta and will spend the weekend on the resort island of Bali before flying back to Beijing on Sunday.
Sino-Indonesian ties have achieved enormous progress since the normalization of full diplomatic ties, particularly during the tenure of former president Abdurrahman Wahid.
Chinese foreign ministry officials said that the replacement of the deposed Abdurrahman by Megawati had not affected bilateral ties as Megawati, whose father was Sukarno, Indonesia's first president, had been one of Asia's familiar figures in the minds of hundreds of millions of Chinese people.