Venezuela’s Maduro Pays Tribute to Mao, Meets China’s Xi on Trip to Deepen Ties

Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro met with Chinese President Xi Jinping and Chinese Premier Li Keqiang Friday in Beijing.

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Maduro is in China on a four-day trip to discuss economic agreements and to bolster his country's recently unveiled economic recovery plan. 

Li told Maduro that China supported Venezuela's efforts to develop its economy and improve people's livelihoods, and was willing to provide what help it could.

Xi told Maduro the two countries should promote mutually-beneficial cooperation to take relations to a new stage, and consolidate political mutual trust, state television said.

Xi said China would support the Venezuelan government's efforts to seek stability and development.

Prior to his talks with Xi and Li, Maduro visited the Mao Zedong mausoleum to pay tribute to the Chinese leader. He honored Mao by bowing three times in front of a wreath at the massive mausoleum facing Tiananmen Square and heaping praise on Communist China's founder, according to Channel Asia News.

"We are beginning this state visit in the best way because we have come to pay tribute to the great helmsman Mao Zedong. ... I was very moved because it really reminds of one of the great founders of a multipolar 21st century," Maduro said as he went on to praise Mao as a "giant of the homeland of humanity" and a "giant of revolutionary ideas."

Maduro's visit to China comes at the invitation of Xi. He said the Chinese leader's vision of a "common destiny for humanity" is more than welcome as it comes "without a hegemonic empire that blackmails, that dominates, that attacks the people of the world."