BRONWEN ROBERTS, Johannesburg | Friday 10.15pm.
CHINESE President Jiang Zemin left for home late on Thursday after a four-day state] visit to South Africa marked by the signing of a declaration calling for a new world order.
Jiang made a pilgrimage on Thursday to Robben Island, off Cape Town, where former president Nelson Mandela was imprisoned for 18 years during white-minority rule in South Africa.
Jiang, whose own government has been criticised for harrassing and jailing political opponents, said in the prison courtyard that he wanted to pay “the highest tribute” to Mandela and those who had been jailed with him.
“We sincerely hope that the people of South Africa will score even greater achievements,” he said.
Opposition leaders and activists called for South African President Thabo Mbeki to raise human rights with Jiang, and two protests were held, in Durban and Cape Town, but a Chinese spokesman told journalists the two leaders did not broach the subject.
Jiang’s visit to South Africa followed the establishment of diplomatic relations at the beginning of 1998 after Pretoria severed ties with Taiwan and recognised it as in integral part of mainland China.
That was regarded at the time as a coup for Beijing, but analysts here said it was also a political and economic necessity for South Africa.
The recognition of Taiwan as an inalienable part of China was reaffirmed in the “Pretoria Declaration” which Jiang and Mbeki signed on Tuesday after two hours of talks.
It calls for a “new world order” in which “no country should dominate others,” and demands that “the negative effects of globalisation — especially on developing nations — should be reduced and restricted.”
Mbeki is current chairman of the Non-Aligned Movement, and much of the emphasis during the visit was on South-South co-operation, but ministers signed six bilateral accords — on police cooperation, maritime transport, preventing the spread of noxious plant pathogens from one country to the other, animal health and quarantine, arts and culture, and avoidance of double taxation.
Jiang and Mbeki stressed the strength of the bond between South Africa and China and said it had developed considerably since relations were established.
“I think our relationship will grow very well because we have a long history of supporting each other,” Jiang told journalists.
Jiang left Johannesburg for Beijing on Thursday night, bringing to a close the president’s 15-day world tour, which earlier took in Egypt, Greece, Turkey and Israel.