Jiang heads for Bush summit with N Korea added to packed agenda
( 2002-10-22 16:38 ) (7 )

President Jiang Zemin left China Tuesday for a summit in Texas with President George W. Bush, the packed agenda of which is now also due to cover ridding North Korea of its nuclear weapons.

Jiang flew out of Beijing Tuesday morning shortly after a departure ceremony at the Great Hall of the People in central Beijing, the state Xinhua news agency said.

Among colleagues seeing him off were Vice President Hu Jintao, the man expected to take over from Jiang as part of a leadership changeover beginning at next month's 16th Communist Party Congress.

On Friday comes the visit's centrepiece, the one-hour meeting with Bush at the US leader's ranch in Crawford, Texas, before a flight to Mexico for the weekend summit of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) forum.

Jaing is expected to then fly home via San Francisco, although the details of this have not been announced.

Jiang and Bush are due to discuss the shock revelation by Washington last week that North Korea has admitted to secretly developing nuclear weapons, and most particularly what to do about it.

Bush confirmed Monday that he intended to raise the "emerging threat" of Pyongyang with Jiang at the ranch.

The subject joins a long list of topics to be packed into their brief talk, among which Iraq is also prominent.

With a possible United Nations Security Council resolution looming on how to deal with Baghdad's alleged weapons of mass destruction, Bush will be keen to hear from Jiang what action China might support.

Beijing has thus far been the quietest of the five veto-holding permanent security council members, refusing to take any stance beyond calling for a political settlement based around the UN.

And while Sino-US ties have improved markedly over the past year, the perennial bugbear of Taiwan remains a potential upset and is also likely to get an airing at the summit.

But for all the action in the United States, many observers believe that much of Jiang's likely last swansong on the world stage is intended for audiences back at home.