Chavez tells China that Venezuela is lifting itself up-like China did 50 years ago!

President Hugo Chavez Frias has called on Chinese leaders to share Venezuela's "resurrection after decades of financial crisis." Speaking at a special economic seminar in Beijing, Chavez Frias said his country is "finally lifting itself up ... just as China, 50 years ago, lifted itself up by the hand of Mao Tse-Tung, the great navigator!"

Earlier, Chavez Frias had paid homage at Mao Tse- Tung's tomb, writing "To the great strategist, to the great soldier, to the great statesman and to the great revolutionary" in the mausoleum's special guest book for visiting dignitaries. The Venezuelan President chided the United States as attempting to be a global policeman and said that instead the world needs several strong countries, including China to do a proper job of it. He had been greeted on his arrival in Beijing by Chinese President Jiang Zemin and insists that he's pushing through a 'peaceful revolution' of reform in government institutions, the judiciary and the nation's Congress which have been infested with corruption for at least the last forty years of pseudo-democratic rule.

Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez toured a section of the Great Wall of China on Monday

BEIJING, China (AP) -- Chinese President Jiang Zemin gave a full state welcome to one of Latin America's most controversial leaders Monday, with cannon shots reverberating through Tiananmen Square and a military band playing Venezuela's national anthem.

But Hugo Chavez, the former coup leader turned president, got more than just salutes during his visit to the Chinese capital: the Beijing government agreed to purchase a special Venezuelan fuel that stands in for coal.

After the two nations signed six agreements bolstering bilateral ties, Jiang lifted a champagne glass in Beijing's Great Hall of the People and proclaimed "Salud!" -- Spanish for "to health!"

Calling China "a true world power," Chavez congratulated Jiang for this month's 50th anniversary of the Chinese Revolution. Earlier in the day, he bought a white porcelain statue of revolutionary leader Mao Tse-tung at the Great Wall of China.

The 45-year-old Chavez also climbed a portion of the Great Wall, at one point breaking into a sprint that forced bodyguards and members of a Venezuelan business delegation to run alongside him.

He jogged around the lakes and gardens of the official Beijing guest house where he's staying, and then began pitching baseballs.

The Venezuelan leader is on a two-week tour of China, Japan, South Korea, Hong Kong, Malaysia, Singapore and the Philippines _ largely to drum up business for Venezuela's ailing economy, which shrank by an astounding 10 percent in the first half of 1999.

On Monday, the Chinese agreed to purchase the controversial tar-based fuel called Orimulsion, which Venezuela had hoped to sell to a power company in Florida last year but was blocked by environmental groups claiming it was a threat to the air and water.

Hector Ciavaldini, president of the huge state oil company Petroleos de Venezuela, told The Associated Press on Monday that the company had recently developed a safer version of Orimulsion that reduced sulfur emissions to insignificant levels.

Venezuelan officials said the Chinese would soon begin buying relatively small amounts of the fuel, which is often used as a coal substitute in electric plants. By 2001, they said, China could buy 3 million to 4 million tons a year of Orimulsion.

"We are in the presence of a country that has the world's largest growth rate, with a deficit in energy production, so Venezuela could become one of the main suppliers to this gigantic market," said Jorge Valero, Venezuela's vice foreign minister.

Chavez, right, reviews an honor guard with Chinese President Jiang Zemin during an official welcome ceremony in Beijing's Tiananmen Square on Monday

Chavez, who staged a failed military coup attempt in 1992, has been trying to convince officials and businessmen in China that investing in Venezuela is a safe bet.

One of the agreements signed Monday protects Chinese investments in Venezuela, including the China National Petroleum Corporation's $360 million investment in drilling and exploitation rights in two Venezuelan oil fields.

Since arriving in the region Sunday, Chavez has been effusive both in his praise of China and in his treatment of the Chinese, stopping often to talk to ordinary people.

Officials in both Shanghai and Beijing cleared the roads of cars to make room for Chavez's motorcade. People lined the streets to get a glimpse of the Venezuelan leader who, since taking office last February, has made headlines worldwide by shaking up his country's ruling establishment.

Chavez says he's carrying out a "peaceful revolution" by remaking institutions such as Congress and the courts, but his critics insist he's leading the South American nation toward authoritarian rule.

Several business leaders accompanying Chavez said his decision to invite them along was a positive sign that the left-leaning president was finally beginning to build bridges to the private sector.

Trade between Venezuela and China has fallen to almost nothing in the last few years, and Venezuelan exporters have complained that their country's sharply overvalued currency puts Venezuelan products at a disadvantage.

2 posted on 09/19/2005 1:22:09 PM PDT by dennisw (If you can serve a cup of tea right, you can do anything. - Gurdjieff)

"finally lifting itself up ... just as China, 50 years ago, lifted itself up by the hand of Mao Tse-Tung, the great navigator!"

If Chavez follows Mao's path then there is a lot of dying to do yet.

Maybe Robertson wasn't too far off in his proposed solution.

So, when is Chavez going to start flirting with Lemarckian biology so the Venezualians will be forced to eat their children to stay alive like the Chinese did during Mao's "Great Leap Forward". You'd think that 30 million+ corpses would disqualify a leader from being emulated by others. What's next? Admiring Mugube's redistribution of land from rich farmers?

The good news is that the Venezuelan Cultural Revolution will only last 20 minutes.

5 posted on 09/19/2005 1:33:24 PM PDT by Tijeras_Slim (Now that taglines are cool, I refuse to have one.)

6 posted on 09/19/2005 1:35:35 PM PDT by dts32041 ( Robin Hood, stealing from the government and giving back to tax payer. Where is he today?)

Chavez Frias said his country is "finally lifting itself up ... just as China,50 years ago, lifted itself up by the hand of Mao Tse-Tung,the great navigator!"

Does this mean,Comrade,that we can look forward to a "great leap forward" in Venezuela that will kill millions,or hundreds of capitalist puppets (aka:students) shot in cold blood in Caracas for engaging in counterrevolutionary insurrection or the involuntary aborting of female babies?

You'd think that 30 million+ corpses would disqualify a leader from being emulated by others.

Oh,how foolish you are.Just as Walter Durante revealed about Stalin's USSR in the 1930's,there were no fatalities due to The Great Helmsman's badly needed agricultural reforms of the 1950's.

<sarcasm>Well, at least Vietnam is so much better off after the North Vietnamese communists took over. John Kerry was right on the money in the early-1970s when he speculated that only about 5,000 people would be killed in retribution after a communist takeover. Instead, those people live in a paradise of modern wonders that not only rivals Thailand and Indonesia but also South Korea and Japan.</sarcasm>

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