Jia, chairman of the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference, traveled to Canberra after visiting Western Australia. Gillard and Jia agreed to make it easier for students to study in either country and created a China- Australia Forum to guide future relations, a statement from Gillard’s office said.
China is Australia’s biggest trading partner and bought A$7.25 million ($7.6 million) worth of goods in February, according to government statistics released on April 5. China’s economy expanded 10.3 percent in 2010, overtaking Japan as the world’s second-largest.
Australia, the world’s biggest shipper of coal and iron ore, avoided recession after the global financial crisis on surging Asian demand.
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2011-04-0 ... llard.html
Interesting .... Gillard breaking bread with ..
http://english.gov.cn/2008-03/13/content_923072.htm
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-Wikiis a senior leader of the People's Republic of China. He is the fourth ranking member of the Politburo Standing Committee of the Communist Party of China, the Chairman and Party secretary of the National Committee of the People's Political Consultative Conference. Jia's functions as the head of China's consultative legislative body are largely "ceremonial" in nature. Earlier he had served as the CPC Party Chief in the country's southern Fujian province, and also as Mayor of Beijing.
Because of his high local position and his ties with then-General Secretary Jiang Zemin, in November 2002 Jia became the fourth-ranking member on the powerful Politburo Standing Committee (PSC) of the Communist Party of China.[4] Although his ceremonial role as the Chairman of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference, a quasi-consultative upper house in China's political system, makes him fourth in the order of precedence, it is widely accepted that the position has very little power, perhaps the least amount of power in the nine PSC members.