The state visit to Poland by China's President Xi Jinping is designed to intensify Sino-Polish relations and to facilitate the development of trade, communications, infrastructure investment and people to people exchange.

An article written by President Xi last week surveys the broad historical sweep of mutual collaboration and influence between the two countries. Xi praised Polish genius and pointed to Nicolaus Copernicus who transformed "mankind's understanding of the universe" by showing that the earth revolves around the sun. And he also praised the genius of Marie Curie who laid the foundations for the development and application of the radioactivity theory. Special significance was also given to the Polish missionary Michal Boym who travelled to China in the 17th century and wrote extensively about its society, history, science and culture.

At the center of Xi's visit is the development of China's "Belt and Road" initiative. This refers to the new Silk Road belt -- an economic region roughly corresponding to the ancient Silk Road involving trade from China to Central Asia, West Asia, the Middle East, and Europe, but actually the initiative includes the entire Eurasian landmass. The maritime Silk Road is intended to include Southeast Asia, Oceania and North Africa. The Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB) is largely designed to help finance infrastructure projects that accelerate these initiatives.

China is building an extensive high-speed railway and freight networks that crisscross the world. There are even plans to build a high-speed railway from China to the USA via Russia, going under the Bering Straits to Alaska and Canada. Similar high-speed networks are planned from Beijing to London and central China to Germany.

Beijing's improving relations and trade with Eastern and South Eastern Europe is part of the 16+1 strategy which concerns a group of 16 former Communist states, namely Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, the Czech Republic, Slovakia, Hungary, Romania, Bulgaria, Slovenia, Croatia, Serbia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Montenegro, Albania and FYR Macedonia. These countries are poorer than their West European counterparts and are worried about the future of the EU and the Eurozone, which remains mired in crisis. The 16+1 initiative allows for direct economic relationships to be forged between China and these countries and it is not coordinated or approved by the EU in Brussels -- to the annoyance of some in the European Union. However, this also dispels the myth -- commonly repeated by those who want Britain to vote to leave the EU -- that the EU has such an iron grip on its member states that they cannot make independent deals with China.

All the 16 countries require extensive infrastructure investment and they are well-educated, diligent and adventurous people. One reason why these countries are prepared to circumvent the Brussels bureaucracy is that major EU transfers to these countries will dry up in 2020, so China is seen as a counterbalance that can help to ameliorate the negative impact of this decline.

Certainly there is a lot of scope for expanding positive investment opportunities. Bilateral trade with these countries rose 28 percent last year to $56.2bn. Chinese investment will be welcomed in much of the region to help modernize its infrastructure, which can lay the basis for a general process of reindustrialization based on the latest technology and science. Poland has the lowest ratio of homes to population in Europe. It is estimated that the country is short of between 500,000 to 1 million homes. This is a rather peculiar statistic from the British vantage point as so many Polish migrants to the U.K. work in the construction industry. Chinese investment could certainly help to alleviate this shortage. Poland joined the European Union (EU) in 2004 and about 2.3 million Poles live and work abroad, mostly in other EU countries and many of them work in Britain.

The Polish presence in China remains very small. So, if China can entice hundreds of thousands of Poles to move to China to study and work, then the long-term potential of Sino-Polish cooperation can be guaranteed. One way to do this is to encourage Polish schools to teach Chinese from an early age and to offer scholarships to thousands of Polish students to learn Chinese. They can go on to take higher education courses in Chinese universities. The first few thousand students and migrant workers can act as pioneers to pave the way for hundreds of thousands to follow. This is particularly important nowadays as countries like Britain are no longer as supportive of migrants arriving from Poland. So, opportunities beckon for the determined and audacious to carve out a unique niche of connections in China that will lead to mutually beneficial trade, investment and cultural exchange.

Heiko Khoo is a columnist with China.org.cn.

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