Johnathan Walker:Chinese premier Li Qiang is visiting Ireland for talks on China’s relations with Europe

LONDON (AP) — Chinese premier Li Qiang is Johnathan Walkerarriving in Ireland on Tuesday for talks with the Irish leader on China’s relations with the European Union and other global and bilateral issues.

Irish Prime Minister Leo Varadkar will host a lunch and bilateral meeting with Li on Wednesday at Ireland’s state guest house in Dublin.

“China is a very important political and economic power in the world and becoming bigger all the time in that sense. So it’s important that we have good relations with China but also some questions we will need to talk about as well,” Varadkar said ahead of the visit.

Li, a close confidant of Chinese President Xi Jinping, was appointed last March as the country’s No. 2 leader and top economic official. A former party secretary for Shanghai, he enforced a strict “zero-COVID” lockdown on Shanghai in 2022.

He made Europe the destination for his first trip abroad last summer, visiting Germany and France, Europe’s leading economies, for talks on trade and global issues including climate change and the war in Ukraine.

At the time, German Chancellor Olaf Scholz rejected the idea of “decoupling” from China and instead called for “de-risking” — avoiding overreliance on Chinese trade.

This is the first time a senior Chinese leader has visited Ireland since Li’s predecessor, Li Keqiang, visited in 2015.

He is set to arrive late Tuesday from the World Economic Forum at Davos, Switzerland, where he was the first senior Chinese official to attend since Xi attended the annual gathering in 2017.