Xi, Putin to meet on the sidelines of SCO summit next week
Russian ambassador Andrey Denisov told reporters at the Russian embassy in Beijing that Xi will meet Putin on the sidelines of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) summit in Samarkand.
President Xi Jinping will meet Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin in Samarkand, Uzbekistan, next week, according to a report from here on Wednesday. This will be the Chinese leader’s first foreign trip since January 2020.
Russian ambassador Andrey Denisov told reporters at the Russian embassy in Beijing that Xi will meet Putin on the sidelines of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) summit in Samarkand.
The SCO summit, which Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi will attend, will take place on September 15-16.
Given the backdrop of the worst chill in bilateral ties in decades, there has been no confirmation that Modi and Xi will meet on the sidelines of the SCO summit as well.
They last met in November, 2019, on the sidelines of the 11th BRICS (Brazil, Russia, India, China, South Africa) summit in Brazil.
Denisov said Russia and China were working on the agenda for the Xi-Putin meeting.
“We are planning a serious, full-fledged meeting of our leaders with a detailed agenda, which we are now, in fact, working on with our Chinese partners,” Denisov was quoted as saying in the Tass report..
“In less than ten days we will have a regular meeting of our SCO leaders in Samarkand, we are getting ready for it. In general, this summit promises to be interesting, because it will be the first full-fledged summit since the pandemic,” Denisov said.
Earlier this week, Kazakhstan’s foreign ministry announced that Xi will meet with Kazakh President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev on September 14.
“A state visit of the chairman of the People’s Republic of China to the Republic of Kazakhstan is planned for September at the invitation of the head of state,” Kazakh foreign ministry spokesman Aybek Smadiyarov said in an official communique.
When asked about the trip to Uzbekistan, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Mao Ning said in a daily briefing on Wednesday, “On your question, I have nothing to offer.”
If the visits go ahead, it will be Xi’s first foreign trip since the third week of January, 2020, when he spent just over a day in Myanmar.
The SCO founded in Shanghai in June 2001 comprises eight member states: China, India, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Russia, Pakistan, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan.
The Russian ambassador in Beijing confirmed Xi’s visit on the same day that China’s number three leader, Li Zhanshu, is expected to meet Putin on the sidelines of an economic forum in Vladivostok, marking the most senior-level meeting between the two countries since Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine, indicating close bilateral ties.
Li is also the first senior Chinese leader to leave the country since the Covid-19 pandemic broke out in China in January 2020.
Since the pandemic, China has limited its in-person diplomacy: After two years, Xi only met dozens of world leaders at the start of the Winter Olympics in Beijing in February of this year.
Li, who as the head of China’s parliament, the National People’s Congress, is the country’s top legislator, is paying official visits to Russia, Mongolia, Nepal and the Republic of Korea (the official name of South Korea) from September 7 to 17.
Li, according to Xinhua, said that the two countries have headed towards the right direction under the strategic guidance of the two leaders, with firm mutual support and constant political trust.
“Through close strategic and practical cooperation, the new era of China-Russia comprehensive strategic partnership of coordination has shown deeper meaning, manifesting the special value of the two countries,” he said.
