Deva Visits China

Niranjan Deva-Aditya, a Member of the European Parliament, and Ambassador-at-Large of Sri Lanka visited China from 24th July to 2nd August 2006.

During his visit he had meetings in Beijing with Assistant Minister Kong Quan at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, and with Vice-chairman Wang Yinfan and officials of the Foreign Affairs Committee at the National People’s Congress. Also with President Wu Jianmin and faculty-members at the China Foreign Affairs University.

He also had high-level meetings at the Ministry of Commerce, and met with Li Peiyuan, Director-General of the Bureau of Senior Officials Training of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China. He also met senior officials of UNDP and the EU in Beijing.

On the fifth day he made a visit to Chanchung, where he was received by the Provincial Governor, Wang Min, and by Vice-chairman Fengjun Mi and the leadership of the People’s Congress and the Provincial Government of Jilin Province in North-East China. He visited a factory near Chanchung which processes corn into modified starch and a wide range of industrial products.

Ambassador Deva-Aditya, who is a prospective candidate to succeed Kofi Annan as Secretary-General of the United Nations, met with the President of the UN-China Association, Ambassador Jin Yongjian, and the Secretary-General Mr. Pang Sen. He delivered a paper on relations between the EU and China and on his vision for the United Nations.

On leaving Beijing for Sri Lanka, Ambassador Deva expressed his thanks to the government and people of China for their courtesy and generosity during his visit, and said “I am very glad to have had the opportunity to visit China, and to see for myself the tremendous progress which has been made over the past twenty years. China is a great country with a long and distinguished history. Its relationship with the European Union must be a relationship based on mutual respect and cooperation, where neither side feels entitled to lecture the other.”

NOTE TO EDITORS

Niranjan Deva-Aditya is the first person in history to be born in one continent (Asia), to be elected to parliament in another continent (UK) and then elected to represent that country as a member of a multi-national Parliament (the European Parliament). He was born in 1948 in Sri Lanka to a Catholic family of Rajasthani Indian descent. He speaks Sinhalese and English, and is married to Indra - a French-speaking Mauritian, with one son. In 2001 he was appointed Ambassador-at-Large by Letters Patent issued by the Sri Lankan Cabinet, and in 2006 he was awarded the title of “Vishwa Keerthi Sri Lanka Abhimani,” by the Buddhist clergy in recognition of his services to Sri Lanka.