Espen Barth Eide, State Secretary of the Norwegian Ministry of Defense, headed a joint delegation from the Norwegian Ministry of Defense and Ministry of Foreign Affairs visiting Beijing from the 8th to the 12th of March 2008.
Important for Norway
In a meeting with Vice Minister of Foreign Affairs Zhang Yesui on March 12th, Barth Eide said Norway attaches importance to developing ties with China. Zhang spoke highly of the current China-Norway relations, saying that China is ready to make joint efforts with Norway to push forward bilateral ties through in-depth, broad dialogue.
Chinese Vice Minister of Foreign Affairs and Norwegian State Secretary of Defense discussed issues like international security, UN Peacekeeping Operations and Sudan's Darfur.
Barth Eide also met with officials from the People's Liberation Army and Chinese researchers, discussing issues like geo-political developments, UN peacekeeping operations and Sino-Norwegian bilateral cooperation. On March 10th, he visited the police training center for international missions in Langfang and held a lecture about International Security at National Defence University.
Focus on UN
In a comment before the visit, Barth Eide said he was looking forward to discussing global challenges with his Chinese counterparts.
- Global challenges are important in Norwegian security and Defence policies. Considering China's increasing global importance, I am looking forward to talk about this with the Chinese. China and Norway both focus heavily on the UN, he said.
The visit was a follow-up of a conference about UN integrated peacekeeping operations, "Multidimensional and Integrated Peace Operations – The Way Forward”, which was arranged by Norway and China in Beijing in March 2007.