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Prime Minister Stephen Harper and his wife Laureen visit the Forbidden City in Beijing.Sean Kilpatrick

Stephen Harper and his wife Laureen toured the vast squares of the Forbidden City on Friday morning, with the diplomatic pummelling he took at the hands of the Chinese government still reverberating.

The state-controlled media is driving home Premier Wen Jiabao's rebuke of the Prime Minister for taking too long to visit China.

"Five years is too long a time for China-Canada relations and that's why there are comments in the media that your visit is one that should have taken place earlier," he said in front of reporters, when the Premier and the Prime Minister met Thursday afternoon.

And to press the point, the Premier then granted an interview to Hong-Kong based Phoenix television.

"For quite a long time, China and Canada's relations had been very close," he said.

"… But the recent couple of years - and this is not what we like to see - relations between the two countries were estranged, thus affecting trading and personal exchanges between the peoples.

"I feel this time the visit of Prime Minister Harper ... I just said a sentence, which was this was 'a visit that should have taken place earlier.'"

If that weren't enough, Mr. Wen told Chinese reporters, "We were reluctant to see Canada alienate us in recent years. That has hampered our trade and personal exchanges.

"… I hope the visit can solve the problem of mutual trust," he said. The quotes appeared in a front-page article in the state-controlled China Daily, Friday.

Later on Friday, Mr. Harper travels to Shanghai, to give a speech to business leaders. He can only hope that with that speech, attention will shift from the fire that scorched his government from the dragon in Beijing.

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