For first time since Covid outbreak, Xi Jinping to leave China, meet Putin

Beijing

For the first time in two years since the outbreak of Covid, Chinese President Xi Jinping will step out of Beijing for Uzbekistan to meet his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin

The meeting comes a month ahead of the 20th Chinese Communist Party’s Congress next month in Beijing, where Xi Jinping is likely to secure a third term in office as president even as a revamped top leadership line-up is expected to be unveiled. With this Xi will cement his place as the most powerful Chinese leader since Mao Zedong.

Xi will land in Kazakhstan first on Wednesday, and then will travel to the ancient Silk Road city of Samarkand in Uzbekistan, where he will meet Putin at the Shanghai Cooperation Organization's summit.

The meeting between Xi and Putin was confirmed by the Russian president’s foreign policy aide, Yuri Ushakov, last week.

But he declined to give further details on the content of the talks, while China has yet to confirm Xi's travel plans.

The members of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation are Russia, China, India, Pakistan and four Central Asian states. Iran, one of Moscow's key allies in the Gulf, is next in line to get the membership.,

The meeting comes as both share tense relationships with the United States, which have further deteriorated after the Russian invasion of Ukraine.

"It is all about Xi in my view: he wants to show just how confident he is domestically and to be seen as the international leader of nations opposed to Western hegemony," George Magnus, author of "Red Flags", a book about Xi's challenges, told Reuters.

"Privately I imagine Xi will be most anxious about how Putin's war is going and indeed if Putin or Russia are in play at some point in the near future because China still needs an anti-western leadership in Moscow," he added.

(With inputs from agencies)

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