A six-member high-powered team from the Chinese People's Liberation Army is on a three-day visit to Trinidad and Tobago for discussions with the Defence Force.The team, headed by General Ma Xiaottian, Deputy Chief of General Staff, paid a courtesy call on THA Chief Secretary Orville London on Monday at the Calder Hall Administrative Complex. Chinese Ambassador to T&T Yang Youmin accompanied the team to Tobago.Commenting on the visit, London said the assembly was very honoured to have hosted the team from the Chinese military. He said according to the general they were visiting T&T to have discussions with the Defence Force and as part of the consultations and deliberations with a view of sharing information and tactics to hopefully upgrade the capacity of the T&T Defence Force.
London added: "We in Tobago are very pleased that the Chinese consistently indicate their desire to ensure that Tobago is not left out of any national activities."In fact, China is one of the countries, which as a matter of course celebrates its major spring festival event in Tobago and in Trinidad separately."London said that was a very positive signal and spoke of the kind of relationship which had developed between the people of China and the people of Tobago over the years.He added, "We definitely appreciate the fact they took the opportunity to pay this visit to Tobago and the Office of the Chief Secretary. It was a brief visit but I think we all appreciated the intent to signal there is an appreciation of Tobago as a special and important island in the country of T&T.