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of Latin America by a Chinese president, visiting Mexico, Brazil, Uruguay,
Argentina, and Chile. At each stop, Yang lobbied for increased trade and
support for Chinese membership in GATT. The same month, Wan Li vis-
ited Pakistan. Late in 1990, Qian Qichen visited Egypt, the UAE, Sudan, Iraq,
Syria, Saudi Arabia, and Jordan. In January 1991, Qian was back in Africa,
visiting Ethiopia, Uganda, Kenya, and Tanzania. The leaders of seven African
countries also visited China in 1990.^10 In February and March 1991, the peri-
patetic Qian Qichen traveled to Portugal, Spain, Poland, Bulgaria, Hungary,
Greece, and Malta. This European tour made Qian the first senior PRC offi-
cial to visit Western Europe since the Beijing Massacre.
Qian also engineered an end to the international ostracizing of Li Peng.
As the public face of the Beijing Massacre, Li carried considerable stigma
in Western countries. In November and December 1989, he was the first
top-level Chinese leader to venture out of China after the Beijing massacre,
traveling to Pakistan, Nepal, Bangladesh, Indonesia, Singapore, Thailand,
Malaysia, the Philippines, Sri Lanka, and Laos. In April 1990, Qian arranged
visits by Li to nine other South and Southeast Asian countries. Li visited India
in December 1991. The capstone of Qian’s effort to overcome this stigma was
a nine-day tour of Italy, Switzerland, Portugal, Spain, and the United States
(for a UN session) in January 1992. France declined a request to receive Li,
and Portugal tried unsuccessfully to delay Li’s visit. Li participated in a UN
summit in January along with twelve other world leaders, and was granted a
private meeting with President Bush.^11
Qian also pushed for breakthroughs in relations with important but
long-estranged countries. South Korea was an important target of these
efforts. Trade and unofficial exchanges between China and South Korea
began increasing in the late 1980s as the two outward-looking economies
engaged under the principle of separation of politics and economics. Large
delegations of Chinese athletics participated in the 1986 Asian Games in
Pusan and the 1988 Summer Olympic Games in Seoul—both major steps in
South Korea’s recognition as a newly industrialized country. In September
1990, South Korea reciprocated China’s favor by sending a 553-person team
to Beijing to participate in the Asian Olympic Games. Beijing’s hosting of the
Asian Games was a significant element of China’s effort to put behind it the
onus of the Beijing Massacre, and Seoul’s support in this effort was appreci-
ated. The month after the Asian Games, Beijing and Seoul agreed to set up
trade representative offices.^12
The pace of rapprochement accelerated in 1991. In April, Vice Foreign
Minister Liu Huaqiu led a delegation to Seoul for a UN meeting. This was
the first ever visit by a high PRC official to South Korea. In September, Qian
Qichen and Foreign Trade Minister Li Lanqing visited Seoul to attend an
APEC conference. The same month, the two Korean states, the Republic of
Korea and the People’s Democratic Republic of Korea, simultaneously entered