The Taoiseach, Bertie Ahern, is to visit China in the autumn. It was announced last week that he is going to Moscow in September and news reaches Quidnunc that China will now be included in the expedition.
Although David Andrews was there earlier this year and Dick Spring visited China when he was Minister for Foreign Affairs, it will be the first visit by a Taoiseach. It was arranged with the Chinese prime minister, Zhu Rongji, at the ASEM summit in London last month. China was sent to Coventry by the West after Tienanmen Square but this will have eased, presumably, when President Clinton arrives next month and when our man goes in the autumn. In China this week was the DPP Eamonn Barnes, who is president of the International Association of Prosecutors. He was given a status on par with a deputy prime minister, which means no expense or honour spared, probably because the Chinese hope he will bring his organisation's annual meeting there shortly. What magnificent treatment can Bertie expect?