French President Jacques Chirac flew out of China Saturday after a successful four-day visit marked by the signing of trade deals worth billions of dollars and a warming of political ties.
Chirac departed China's ancient capital of Xian after French companies won deals in the aviation, railway and car industries as part of his fourth and final visit as French president. "Never have we been so confident in our relationship, both in the political arena as well as in the economic arena," Chirac told journalists late Friday in the central city of Wuhan.
There has been an increase in high-level meetings between the two countries and "there are similarities in our approaches to international affairs, notably concerning North Korea, Iran as well as in the strengthening of our co-operation in the area of law and human rights," he said.
In Wuhan, a city of 10 million people along the Yangtze river, Chirac laid the foundation stone for a new Peugeot-Citroen factory, while urging French industry chiefs to further expand their "strategic alliance" with China.
The new Peugeot-Citroen factory, a 50-50 joint venture with China's Dongfeng, is expected to begin production in 2009 and will tap into China's voracious appetite for new cars with an eventual annual production capacity of 150,000 vehicles.
On Thursday, Chirac spent more than an hour meeting with Chinese President Hu Jintao in Beijing, after which the two nations announced that Airbus had secured an order for 150 A320 aircraft that could be worth about 10 billion dollars, based on the jet's current list price.
Airbus also agreed to set up an aircraft factory in the city of Tianjin, with both announcements seen as giving the European giant a much stronger foothold in the world's most lucrative aviation market.
A total of 13 new deals with French industry were signed Thursday in Beijing, including a 1.5-billion-dollar contract involving Alstom SA helping to build 500 Chinese freight locomotives.
In Xian, famous for its army of terracotta warriors, Chirac visited the more than 2,000-year-old tomb of the fourth emperor of the Han dynasty during a three-hour stop-over. During the visit, Chirac admired the archaeological site where thousands of objects have been dug up, including bronze animals and statues.
Upon leaving the tomb, Chirac expressed " a great respect and deep admiration for Chinese archaeologists and for the officials that have supported them." "Here we have witnessed what we can do to bring history back to life and into the present and in doing so we can learn things for the centuries to come," he said.
On Thursday in Beijing, the two sides issued a joint communiqué in which they put up a united front against the separate nuclear ambitions of North Korea and Iran.
The communique signed by Hu Chirac expressed "grave concern" over North Korea's October 9 atomic bomb test and called on Iran to heed UN mandates over its nuclear program. In the statement, China also pledged to advance and protect human rights and fundamental liberties.