The history man

9 April 2009 By John Foley Follow @johnsfoley

In Mao s day, the Venezuelan president could have shared his revolutionary talk with comrades from Albania and North Korea. Now, Beijing s power politics is nonideological. China still likes dealing with widely shunned leaders, but only because it sees the potential for profits.

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Hugo Chávez, president of Venezuela, told Chinese president Hu Jintao that the centre of gravity of the world has moved to Beijing on April 8, during his sixth state visit to China. The power of the US empire has collapsed, he added.

Chávez said he plans to increase oil exports to China from 380m barrels a day at the end of 2008 to 1m barrels per day by 2013. Venezuela is the biggest oil exported in Latin America. Bilateral trade hit $10bn in 2008, according to Venezuelan figures.

Venezuela and China have signed several agreements to deepen cooperation in oil and other industries. In February they agreed to double the size of an investment fund to $12bn. In October, China helped Venezuela to put a satellite into space.

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