Taoiseach Micheál Martin will travel to China beginning tomorrow for a five-day visit, the first by an Irish leader since 2012, as Beijing moves to shore up ties with individual European Union members amid deepening trade and security frictions.
China’s foreign ministry announced the trip, which runs through Thursday, saying Beijing “is willing to take this visit as an opportunity to enhance political mutual trust and expand mutually beneficial co-operation with Ireland.” Martin is due to meet Premier Li Qiang and Zhao Leji, chairman of the Standing Committee of the National People’s Congress, and will visit Shanghai, according to the ministry.
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The journey marks a notable reset in high-level contacts between Dublin and Beijing. In February 2025, Martin met Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi in Dublin, with discussions spanning EU-China relations, trade, human rights and the conflicts in Ukraine and the Middle East.
The Taoiseach’s visit lands against a backdrop of deteriorating EU-China trade relations. Brussels has imposed tariffs on Chinese electric vehicles, and Beijing has launched probes into European brandy and pork imports in response. The dispute has widened fault lines over market access and industrial policy, complicating efforts to stabilize ties between the bloc and the world’s second-largest economy.
Beijing’s diplomatic calendar this week underscores a broader push for engagement even as tensions simmer. Beginning tomorrow, China will separately host South Korean President Lee Jae Myung for a four-day visit that includes talks with President Xi Jinping. Ahead of his trip, Lee told China’s state broadcaster CCTV that South Korea consistently respects the One China policy in relation to Taiwan.
Regional security anxieties are intensifying. In November, Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi said Japan’s military could get involved if China were to take action against Taiwan, which Beijing claims as its territory. Last week, China conducted large-scale military drills around the island over two days, describing them as a warning to what it called separatist and “external interference” forces.
The confluence of high-level visits and military signaling frames Martin’s agenda with both opportunity and constraint. Ireland, a member of the EU single market and a stakeholder in the bloc’s policy toward Beijing, is seeking to protect trade links and investment flows while navigating Europe’s widening scrutiny of Chinese industrial practices, technology transfer and human rights concerns.
For Beijing, direct outreach to EU capitals such as Dublin is part of a strategy to keep bilateral channels open as the European Commission advances a more assertive toolkit on trade defense and de-risking. For Ireland, the trip offers a platform to raise market access issues and reiterate positions discussed during Martin’s February meeting with Wang, while aligning with EU policy on sanctions, export controls and human rights.
No additional details of Martin’s bilateral agenda in China were immediately available beyond the announced meetings in Beijing and the visit to Shanghai. The foreign ministry’s framing suggests Beijing will emphasize continuity and pragmatic cooperation, even as geopolitical stresses over Taiwan and strategic competition with both Europe and U.S. allies shadow the week’s diplomacy.
Taken together, the Taoiseach’s trip and the South Korean president’s visit give Beijing an opening to signal steadiness on trade and outreach, while the recent drills around Taiwan highlight how quickly the region’s security landscape can puncture diplomatic optimism.
By Abdiwahab Ahmed
Axadle Times international–Monitoring.
