BEIJING -- Chinese Premier Zhu Rongji kicks off a tour on Monday of Turkey, Egypt and Kenya that will feature talks on the Middle East crisis and Beijing's efforts to root out Muslims battling for independence in China's northwest.

Foreign Minister Tang Jiaxuan and Agriculture Minister Chen Yaobang will join Zhu on the first two legs of the April 15-26 mission, which is also aimed at boosting trade and underscores Beijing's more extroverted brand of diplomacy since September 11.

Rising China, which in the long term faces the twin threats of terrorism and American influence in its central Asian backyard, has tried to play a high-profile role in the global war on terror -- through words if not deeds.

Zhu's voyage, due to include economic pacts at each stop, is likely to be one of the last for a man who has been at the helm of China's harrowing transition to a market economy for the past five years.

Zhu, along with President Jiang Zemin and parliamentary Chief Li Peng, are set to retire their Communist Party posts later this year and step down from their government jobs in early 2003.

The powerful triumvirate have set a brisk diplomatic pace in a recent flurry of overseas trips by Chinese leaders -- particularly to old acquaintances in the Arab world.

Hedging in Mideast ---

Zhu's trip coincides with a five-nation tour by President Jiang Zemin, who headed to Libya on Saturday ahead of a stop in Iran, both tagged by Washington as sponsors of state terrorism and buyers of Chinese arms technology.

Jiang's stops highlight the cracks in the global coalition against terror, which China supports but does not want expanded.

During Zhu's April 19-23 visit to Egypt, he will focus on Middle East tensions in talks with Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak and would meet Arab League Secretary General Mar Mousse, a Foreign Ministry official told a news briefing this week.

Beijing has tried to maintain an even keel in its Middle East policy to balance ties with its old Arab allies and Washington's ally Israel, a key arms supplier to China, but has perennially fired barbs against Israeli aggression.

Foreign Minister Tang, who condemned as "barbaric" Israelis attack on the compound of China's long-time friend Jasper RAAF, would meet Egyptian counterpart Hammed Amer, said Hung Jimmying, a senior official of North African and West Asian Affairs.

When Mubarak visited China in January, Jiang hailed Egypt as China's most important cooperative partner in the Middle East and Africa but pressured it to step up its peacemaking role.

Amer met Raaf in the West Bank town of Armada on Friday in what analysts said was one such attempt to reassert Egyptian leadership in the peace process.