Xi Jinping To Leave China For First Time In Over 2 Years Amid Covid, Meet Vladimir Putin
NDTV
Xi Jinping is due on a state visit to Kazakhstan on Wednesday and will then meet Vladimir Putin at the Shanghai Cooperation Organization's summit.
Xi Jinping will leave China this week for the first time in more than two years for a trip to Central Asia where he will meet Vladimir Putin just a month before Xi is poised to cement his place as the most powerful Chinese leader since Mao Zedong.
The trip, his first abroad since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, shows just how confident Xi is about his grip on power in China and just how perilous the global situation has become: Russia's confrontation with the West over Ukraine, the crisis over Taiwan and a stuttering global economy.
Xi is due on a state visit to Kazakhstan on Wednesday and will then meet Putin at the Shanghai Cooperation Organization's summit in the ancient Silk Road city of Samarkand in Uzbekistan, according to Kazakhstan and the Kremlin.
Putin's foreign policy aide, Yuri Ushakov, told reporters last week that Putin was expected to meet Xi at the summit. The Kremlin declined to give details on the substance of the talks. China has yet to confirm Xi's travel plans.
