The President said yesterday she has yet to make up her mind on whether she will seek a second term in office, writes Renagh Holohan in Shanghai
Mrs McAleese said she and her husband, Martin, would give the matter a lot of thought. "It is the kind of decision that needs a lot of thinking about, so we are doing that," she told journalists in Shanghai.
Asked about the limits imposed on her as President, she said: "I have been a working person all of my life since I left university, and every job you go into you look at the remit.
"You work out what you are allowed to do, what you are not allowed to do, and you do it to the best of your ability. I have absolutely no complaints about the remit that I have."
Mrs McAleese said she loved being the primary ambassador of her country at a very exciting time, and to be leading a trade delegation of such a size. She found the heavy schedule energising.
Her objective in the coming year, she said, was "to put Ireland on the map internationally, to secure jobs at home, to ensure that the kind of prosperity that Ireland has recently created for itself will be the legacy and the gift to the children of Ireland in the future".
There was still a huge amount of work to be done in Northern Ireland, where the peace process was bedding down "and solidifying incredibly well".
Asked how she felt seeing the Tricolour flying in Tiananmen Square, Mrs McAleese said former events there had broken hearts all around the world, but she felt privileged to belong to a different generation.
She had been able to talk to a new generation in China which had committed itself to much more engagement with the rest of the world.
While she had not been approached in China on human rights issues, the leaders to whom she had spoken would be in no doubt whatsoever about her views and they acknowledged that there were significant differences in perspective between the EU and China.
They wished to resolve those differences by dialogue, and she had been very impressed by their use of the expression "a socialist democracy".
They understood that if one was involved in the World Trade Organisation and in dialogue with the EU there was an expectation that changes must be underpinned by new civil justice structures.
Today Mrs McAleese travels to Shenzhen and then home via Hong Kong, arriving tomorrow lunchtime in Dublin.