MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

Argentine president travels to China to boost trade and cooperation

Argentina is China’s third supplier of soybeans

Argentine President Cristina Fernández de Kirchner will visit China next week as the country is in the middle of a controversy with Congress over a debt repayment plan which would appeal to Central bank resources but has been frozen by the courts.

Relations between Argentina and China have soured of late, after an Argentine judge last month asked Interpol to issue an arrest warrant against former Chinese president Jiang Zemin, following four years of investigating charges of torture and genocide against Falun Gong practitioners.

Mrs. Kirchner will be in China, which has the world's largest foreign currency reserves, from Jan. 25-28, but a Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman politely ignored a question on whether Beijing will provide any aid or loans to Argentina.

“The two countries' leaders will exchange views about deepening the strategic cooperative relationship, expanding practical bilateral cooperation, and issues of mutual concern,” spokesman Ma Zhaoxu told a regular news briefing.

“I think both sides will sign a series of cooperation agreements,” he added, without elaborating. Ma brushed aside concerns the Falun Gong case would derail the visit.

“Falun Gong is a cult that has been clamped down on by the Chinese government according to the law,” he said.

“Falun Gong attempts to sabotage relations between China and relevant countries by using foreign countries' judicial procedures will definitely fail.”

Thousands of Chinese citizens have been jailed or sentenced to labour camps since China declared Falun Gong a cult in 1999, while Jiang was president. Mrs. Kirchner has pushed for human rights trials against former military officers accused of abuses during the 1976-1983 “dirty war” against leftists.

China and Argentina have close business ties. Argentina is one of China's three largest suppliers of soybeans, along with Brazil and the United States. China is also among the top three trade partners of Argentina.

The deepening dispute over Mrs. Kirchner's plan to use billions of dollars in foreign currency reserves for debt repayments this year has rattled financial markets and stoked political tensions.

Mrs. Kirchner fired Central Bank President Martin Redrado by decree earlier this month for refusing to liberate the funds, but a day later a federal judge ordered his reinstatement. The same judge also issued an injunction blocking the transfer of reserves to state coffers which are to be used for the 2010 debt repayment program