Irish President Mary McAleese has said in Dublin China will play an extraordinary role in securing world peace.

In an exclusive interview with Xinhua on the eve of her visit to China, she said her government and the Irish people see China's role in maintaining world peace as crucial.

She is scheduled to visit China from October 6-15.

"We see China as strategically and morally an extraordinary force for good in the world. We see China as a very powerful ally in the cause of multilateralism, in the cause of consensus building and the cause of peace," said McAleese.

"We have cooperated with each other very well at the UN Security Council. We are long-term partners... We have experiences that we can share with each other and support what we can offer to each other. We do our best to create the kind of the world that will make our children and grand children proud of," the Irish president said.

"A consensus is a multilateralism. It does not happen by accident, it does not happen by coincidence, it just happens when we come together," she said, adding that the United Nations should continue to play a pivotal role in maintaining global peace.

McAleese reiterated that Ireland adheres to the "One China" policy and supports China's cause of reunification.

She spoke highly of the smooth and fast development of relations between Ireland and China in recent years, saying that Ireland sees the friendly ties with China as the most important part of its "Asian Strategy," which was formulated by the government following Prime Minister Bertie Ahern's visit to China in 1998.

"There are many examples that we have been developing those ties. This is not the first state visit to China by an Irish president. President (Patrick J.) Hillery visited China several years ago. I think if you look at what has happened since that time, you will see that in recent years... We have been very lucky that there has been considerable size of exchanges of high-level visits and delegations," said McAleese, who visited China's southern city of Shenzhen in 1997 before she took office.

"Here are areas for growth between us...," McAleese said, referring to a series of Sino-Irish agreements on science and technology and examples of economic cooperation such as setting up Irish companies in China.

"Ireland has a wonderful system of education that we are proud of and annually, thousands of Chinese students come here to learn English, they come here to attend our schools, to attend our technological colleges, and universities, and we reckon that they come here because they have heard something good about us," she said. "So we want to go on to reinforce this, so their brothers, sisters and cousins and friends will make the same choice."

"Each one of them is an ambassador to China... That is a great resource for Ireland. It shortens the distance and automatically cements human contact," the president said. "All of these things are very important. We need to be good neighbors with each other."

The president, who said she has been greatly impressed by China's recent development in the economic and political areas, stressed the need to further enhance cooperation between Ireland and China and said Ireland sees partnership as a very important way aimed at securing the kind of successful future for the two peoples.

On the economic cooperation between the two countries, McAleese said China, an emerging power economically and politically, does have a very large market which Ireland wants to trade with.

"We can trade a lot of things. We trade education services through excellent exchanges... Looking at the trade status between us, they have jumped during recent years. Yet, they are still modest. They are very modest in scale, we see huge opportunities there," McAleese said.

She added that Ireland would be willing to share the experiences of Ireland's economic success in the European Union, whose rotating presidency would be chaired by Dublin next year, when the 15-nation bloc welcomes its 10 new members.

The Irish president also said a trade delegation of more than 120 Irish trade experts, the largest of its kind that ever leaves Ireland, would accompany her during her visit to China, where they would have the opportunity to discuss with their Chinese counterparts common interests in the economic and trade areas.

Bilateral relations between China and Ireland have developed smoothly ever since the two countries signed the Communique on the Establishment of Diplomatic Relations on June 22, 1979 and exchanged ambassadors in 1980.
 
(Xinhua News Agency October 5, 2003)