2023-09-14 16:06:09
As part of his tour of China, Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro announced the signing of an agreement with his Chinese counterpart, Xi Jinping, that contemplates the training of Venezuelan astronauts. “What we are going to is for the Moon,” the president said in Beijing as he closed his week-long visit to China.
“Total success in the work day. Three and a half hours working with President Xi Jinping. “What we are going for is for the Moon,” Maduro said in a video broadcast today on the social network X, formerly Twitter.
I had a truly positive meeting with the Prime Minister of China, Li Qiang, to consolidate our ties of support, with concrete objectives that allow us to expand practical and prosperous bilateral cooperation in various areas. Venezuela and China in one… pic.twitter.com/gkbRNPRCG0
— Nicolás Maduro (@NicolasMaduro) September 14, 2023
“We have declared the partnership (as) a foolproof, all-time strategic partnership, as much as possible. What we are going for is to go to the Moon to a splendid stage for China and Venezuela,” he insisted.
In a speech during his meeting with Xi, Maduro explained that the agreement includes the training in China of young Venezuelans to be astronauts with a view to sending them to the Moon.
“The subcommittee on scientific, technological, industrial and aerospace cooperation will sooner rather than later have as its symbol the arrival of the first man and the first Venezuelan woman to the Moon in a Chinese spacecraft. Very soon Venezuelan youth will come to prepare as astronauts here in Chinese schools,” declared Maduro.
China plans to send a manned mission to the Moon in 2030 and build a base there. The world’s second largest economy has invested billions of dollars in its military-run space program in a bid to catch up with the United States and Russia.
We pay tribute to the Heroes of the Chinese People, who in their revolutionary struggle have left an indelible mark on the history of their nation and the world. With this wreath, we express our brotherhood with the Chinese people, and reaffirm our commitment to working together… pic.twitter.com/HH1DvrSRCn
— Nicolás Maduro (@NicolasMaduro) September 14, 2023
In the document, Venezuela and China “agreed to further strengthen cooperation in the field of aerospace, and reinforce coordination in platforms such as the UN Commission for the Peaceful Uses of Outer Space.”
Partners and “friends”
The agreement states that “China and Venezuela are close friends of mutual trust, good partners of common development, and dear partners of strategic collaboration.”
In a press conference closing his tour, Maduro took stock of his visit to China, where he traveled to the cities of Shenzhen, Shanghai and the province of Shandong, before arriving in Beijing.
Madero assured that with the tour and the signed document, the two countries begin “a splendid stage in economic, cultural, educational, civilizational, scientific achievements” of their relationship.
Likewise, he said that Venezuela wants to join the BRICS (Brazil, Russia, India, China, South Africa), the group of emerging economies that held its most recent summit in August in Johannesburg, where an expansion to six new countries was announced, including Argentina.
Thus, Maduro pointed out that his country “can contribute significant strengths to the group’s energy agenda, as a reliable supplier and country with the largest certification of oil reserves and the fourth largest natural gas reserve worldwide.”
China maintains close relations with the internationally isolated Maduro government and is one of the main creditors of Venezuela, whose GDP fell 80% in a decade due to the effect of the economic crisis.
At the end of the conference, Maduro showed two gifts that Xi gave him, including a Huawei folding mobile phone. “I chose Huawei because it is the most secure phone, impossible to break into,” he said.
The other gift was two photos of the visit, in one of which Maduro and Xi appear walking with some children, and in the other the two rulers appear with their wives.
So far this year, Maduro has traveled to Turkey, Saudi Arabia and Brazil, after giving up at the last minute to travel to Lula da Silva’s inauguration at the beginning of the year. He also preferred to stay on land and avoid problems in Buenos Aires, despite the invitation to participate in the summit of the Community of Latin American and Caribbean States (Celac), and avoided attending the Ibero-American conclave in Santo Domingo. He also did not have an invitation to participate in the summit with Europe in Brussels.
Maduro returns to China five years later, precisely when world leaders meet in the other Asian giant, India, for a G-20 summit in which the Chinese leader, Xi Jinping, will not participate. The Chinese Foreign Ministry reported that Maduro’s stay will extend until the 14th.
With information from AFP
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