Beijing - Argentine President Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner and Chinese leaders were expected to set aside recent trade disputes and promote a 'strategic partnership' on Monday, as Kirchner made the first visit to China by an Argentine president since 20

Beijing - Argentine President Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner and Chinese leaders were expected to set aside recent trade disputes and promote a "strategic partnership" on Monday, as Kirchner made the first visit to China by an Argentine president since 2004.

Kirchner was scheduled to meet Chinese President Hu Jintao and Premier Wen Jiabao during her five-day visit, which began on Sunday.

Her meeting with Hu late Monday was scheduled to be followed by the signing of several bilateral agreements, diplomats said.

The Argentine president, on her first trip to China since taking office in 2007, will also visit the World Expo 2010 in Shanghai, China's Foreign Ministry said.

Chinese state media quoted Kirchner as saying before her trip that she valued Argentina's "strategic partnership" with China and hoped her visit would "push bilateral relations to a new high."

The visit follows growing trade conflict between the two nations this year.

In April, China accused Argentina of using "abnormal and discriminatory" trade measures, escalating a dispute that erupted when China suspended imports of soy oil from the South American nation.

Vice Commerce Minister Jiang Yaoping said China was concerned about Argentina's "growing tendency to impose protectionist measures on Chinese products," adding that Argentina had opened 18 anti-dumping investigations against Chinese products last year.

But Zeng Gang, China's ambassador to Argentina, said the recent trade disputes were a "normal phenomenon" that "tend to emerge during rapid growth of the trade relations between two important developing countries."

"As friends and strategic partners, the two nations will be able to settle their trade disputes in an appropriate way through friendly negotiations," the official Xinhua news agency quoted Zeng as saying on Saturday.

Bilateral trade was valued at 14.4 billion dollars in 2008, making China Argentina's second-largest trading partner after Brazil, according to Chinese statistics. Trade figures for 2009 were not immediately available.