BEIJING (Reuters) - Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao will visit Europe next week in a trip expected to focus on tackling the global economic crisis after years of strains between the two sides.
Wen will go to Germany, Spain, Britain, the European Union headquarters in Brussels and Switzerland from January 27 to February 2, the Chinese Foreign Ministry spokeswoman, Jiang Yu, said at a regular news conference Tuesday.
Jiang declined to answer a question about why Wen's trip did not include France.
Beijing abruptly cancelled a China-EU summit late in 2008, angry over French President Nicolas Sarkozy's meeting with the exiled Tibetan spiritual leader the Dalai Lama, whom Beijing condemns as a separatist.
Jiang said China hoped for good relations with the EU and approached the trip with "a positive and pragmatic attitude."
"We take seriously developing relations with the European Union," she told a regular news briefing.
The visit is intended to foster cooperation "in responding to the current financial crisis," she said. She declined to provide a detailed itinerary, although she said Wen would attend the World Economic Forum in Switzerland's Davos.
Bill Rammell, Minister of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs, visiting Beijing to help arrange Wen's visit, said he hoped it would foster cooperation in tough times.
"With the current international economic challenges it's critically important that we work together for a shared response," Rammell told reporters.
Britain has been criticised by advocates of Tibetan self-determination for last year shifting its legal definition of China's rule over the mountain region from "suzerainty" to "sovereignty" -- a shift the critics said bowed to Beijing.
But Rammell said the change was to help his government speak more directly to China about the region's future.
"We revised the position to enable a more meaningful and effective dialogue with China," he said. "The previous position was an impediment to actually having genuine dialogue with China on freedom of religion and genuine autonomy Tibet."
(Reporting by Chris Buckley and Lucy Hornby; Editing by Jerry Norton)
