Chinese foreign minister's visit may signal warming of bilateral contacts

Chinese Foreign Minister Tang Jiaxuan arrived in Poland on a four-day trip, the first visit by a Chinese official to Poland in nine years. Polish-Chinese relations are limited, despite numerous visits by Polish politicians to China and the considerable volume of trade between the two countries. President Aleksander Kwasniewski tried to warm relations by visiting China three years ago and officially declaring that there is only one Chinese state, the People's Republic of China. Since 1997 Poland's trade deficit with China has been deteriorating and last year it amounted to zl.1.1 billion, or 6% of Poland's entire foreign trade gap. (Zycie, pp.1,5) M.M.