Wang Yi heads to Dublin as Ireland’s role in US-China rivalry comes into focus
Chinese foreign minister likely to press case for maintaining ties despite Ireland’s vulnerability to US policy shifts under Donald Trump
For a small island of just over 5 million people on Europe’s western edge, Ireland is playing an outsize role in the travel plans of China’s top leadership.
Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi is scheduled to land in Dublin on Sunday to meet his Irish counterpart Simon Harris and Irish Prime Minister Micheal Martin on Monday, off the back of a visit to Britain on Thursday and a frenzied weekend of diplomacy in Munich.
At the Munich Security Conference, Wang is expected to meet top diplomats from the United States, the European Union, Germany, Ukraine and others. In such heavyweight company, Ireland – a geopolitical minnow – stands out.
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In isolation, though, the trip is easy to understand. Over a decade as foreign minister and in more than 70 trips to Europe – including Russia and the Caucuses, Wang has never been to Ireland, according to a database kept by Sense Hofstede, an independent researcher on China.
In trade terms, Ireland also punches above its weight. It is one of the only European countries to have a trade surplus with China – almost US$13 billion last year, according to calculations based on Chinese customs statistics.
Furthermore, with a new Irish government installed in December, Wang will surely be keen to press the case for maintaining ties with Beijing at an increasingly fraught geopolitical moment.
“It could be to do with the formation of a new Irish government and to try to keep them on side,” said Alexander Davey, an analyst at the Mercator Institute for China Studies, who monitors Sino-Irish ties.