The visit underscores China’s Arctic ambitions.<\/b>
China\u2019s President Xi Jinping made a surprise stop in Alaska on Friday after a two-day summit with U. S. President Donald Trump in Florida, underscoring China\u2019s resource ambitions in the global far north.
Xi met with Alaska Gov. Bill Walker on Friday night during a refueling stop in Anchorage before resuming the flight to Beijing. The two talked trade \u2014 Walker told Xi that Alaska could provide the resource-hungry country with a \u201cgeneration\u2019s worth\u201d of liquefied natural gas, according to local media.
China is Alaska\u2019s top export market \u2014 the state sold more than $1 billion worth of goods to China last year, according to the U. S. Census Bureau. Its biggest export was fish.
«I think this is an extremely valuable opportunity to meet with our largest trade partner face to face,\u201d said Chris Hladick, the commissioner of the state’s Commerce Department, according to the Associated Press. He called the meeting a «once-in-a lifetime opportunity.\u201d
Although the Chinese government has not articulated a clear Arctic policy, the world\u2019s northernmost extreme sits on formidable quantities of mineral reserves, and China has positioned itself as a major stakeholder in the area.
In recent years, China began construction on a research station in Iceland, hosted a major conference on reindeer herding and normalized diplomatic relations with Norway after a six-year freeze. (Beijing cut ties after a Norwegian committee awarded the Nobel Peace Prize to jailed Chinese dissident Liu Xiaobo in 2010).
Xi, on a state visit to Finland before this week\u2019s U. S. summit, said China and Finland will «enhance cooperation in Arctic affairs and promote environmental protection and sustainable development of the Arctic. »
On Friday, Xi and Walker took a sightseeing tour in their motorcade, according to local media, stopping at Beluga Point, a rocky, highway-side outpost looking out over a stunning vista of mountains and glaciers.
Photos posted by the Alaska Dispatch News showed Xi and his wife, famous soprano Peng Liyuan, departing from their plane on Friday evening at about 6:45 p.m., meeting with Walker on the tarmac and accepting flowers from Walker\u2019s 8-year-old granddaughter, Mera Hobson.
They also showed a long motorcade, a staged handshake between Xi and Walker and a mob of people, most of them presumably officials and their security details, standing at the scenic spot and admiring the view.
jonathan.kaiman@latimes.com
For more news from Asia, follow @JRKaiman on Twitter
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