The Chinese Communist Party’s General Secretary in Guangdong, Hu Chunhua, visited Trinity yesterday, as part of a visit organised by the Department of Foreign Affairs.
Chunhua, who holds the top political office in Guangdong, a province in south-east China, visited Trinity yesterday, meeting some of the most senior figures and researchers in the college during his visit to the Old Library and to the Advanced Materials and Bioengineering Research Centre (AMBER) in Trinity, one of Ireland’s leading research centres which is funded by Science Foundation Ireland (SFI), specialising in the development and research of materials.
The Vice-Provost, Prof Chris Morash, gave Chunhua a tour of the Old Library, alongside the Deputy Librarian, Jessie Kurtz; and Anne-Marie Diffley, the Visitor Services Manager. Trinity’s world-famous Old Library is one of the main attractions in the College and has seen numerous famous political figures visit down the years, with then-US Vice-President, Joe Biden, taking a tour to see the Book of Kells last year.
The Ambassador of Ireland to China, Paul Kavanagh, also attended the visit to Trinity yesterday. This isn’t the first time a senior Chinese figure visited Ireland – in 2003, current President Xi Jinping visited Ireland and visited again shortly before becoming president in 2012.
The visit to AMBER saw Chunhua accompanied by some of Ireland’s leading figures in Irish research, including Dr Diarmuid O’Brien, the Chief Innovation and Enterprise Officer in Trinity, as well as Prof Mark Ferguson, the Director General of SFI and the Chief Scientific Advisor to the government.
Chunhua has long been seen as a rising star in China’s Communist Party, with some tipping him to one day become president. A former Party Secretary of Inner Mongolia, Chunhua, who is often known as “Little Hu”, started his career in Tibet.
Chunhua was also accompanied on his visit to AMBER by Dr Lorraine Byrne, Executive Director of the Centre for Research on Adaptive Nanostructures and Nanodevices (CRANN) and AMBER, as well as Michael Morris, the Director of AMBER.
