Chinese President Xi Jinping delivers a speech at the Brazilian National Congress in Brasilia, Brazil, July 16, 2014. [Photo/Xinhua]

Chinese President Xi Jinping has been to Latin America twice since he took office as head of state in 2013. Chinese Premier Li Keqiang will visit Brazil, Colombia, Peru and Chile from May 18 to May 26, 2015. This is his first Latin American tour as a government leader.

China's ties with Brazil date back to the early 19th century when several hundred tea growers from China were sent as laborers to Brazil via Macao. In August 1961, Brazilian President Janio Quadros sent his Vice President, Jo?o Goulart, to China as head of a commercial delegation, making Goulart the first senior government official from Latin America to visit China since 1949.

In May 1984, Brazilian President Jo?o Baptista Figueiredo visited China. The late Chinese patriarch Deng Xiaoping chose the occasion of Figueiredo's visit to put forward his well-known theory of a dichotomous international system comprised of "East and West" and "North and South." Deng said that among the many issues that the world was facing then, the two most important goals were to maintain peace by reducing East-West confrontation and to promote international development to narrow the gap between the developed world (the North) and the developing world (the South).

When Chinese President Jiang Zemin visited Brazil in November 1993, the two countries announced the formation of an official strategic partnership. Brazil thus became the first country in the world to have a strategic partnership with China. Since then, China has established official strategic partnerships with more than 70 countries and organizations around the world.

Economic ties have been progressing steadily between the largest developing country in the world and the largest developing country in the western hemisphere. However, this close relationship has also generated some friction. For example, Brazil was the first Latin American country to impose anti-dumping measures against Chinese exports in December 1989.

Brazil wants to become a permanent member of the United Nations Security Council. China supports U.N. reforms and backs Brazil's endeavor, however, China opposes Japan's efforts to also gain a seat on the Security Council because Japan still refuses to recognize its past war crimes, which caused great suffering and loss of human life in China and many other countries. Therefore, when Brazil made strong ties with Japan, China found it difficult to offer stronger support for Brazil's efforts.

Many Chinese top-level officials have visited Colombia, but no head of state or government leader has ever been there, though Hu Jintao did visit the country in early 1997 as a member of the Politburo Standing Committee of the Communist Party of China. Premier Li Keqiang's trip to Colombia will therefore be historic.

In November 2008, President Hu Jintao met with Colombian President álvaro Uribe while both were attending the 16th APEC Summit in Lima. During this meeting, President Hu expressed China's willingness to address the issue of Colombia's trade deficit, saying that China would be ready to import more products from Colombia. In recognition of Colombia's intention to join APEC, one of the most important regional organizations in the Asia-Pacific region, President Hu said that China understood Colombia's hope and would keep close contact with the South American country in this regard.