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Xi, Putin to meet on the sidelines of SCO summit next week
Xi will meet Putin on the sidelines of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) summit in Samarkand, Russian ambassador Andrey Denisov to China said
BEIJING: President Xi Jinping will meet his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin in Samarkand in Uzbekistan next week, Russian state news agency, Tass, said in a report from here on Wednesday, in what will be the Chinese leader’s first foreign tour since January, 2020.
Xi will meet Putin on the sidelines of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) summit in Samarkand, Russian ambassador Andrey Denisov told reporters at the Russian embassy in Beijing.
The SCO summit, which will be attended by Indian Prime Minister, Narendra Modi, will run from September 15-16.
There’s been no confirmation whether Modi and Xi will meet on the sidelines of the SCO summit as well given the backdrop of the worst chill in bilateral ties in decades
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.
The Kazakhstan foreign ministry had announced earlier this week that Xi will meet with Kazakh President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev on September 14.
“At the invitation of the head of state, a state visit of the chairman of the People’s Republic of China to the Republic of Kazakhstan is planned for September,” Kazakh foreign ministry spokesman Aybek Smadiyarov said in an official communique.
When asked about the Uzbekistan trip, Chinese foreign ministry spokesperson Mao Ning told a daily briefing on Wednesday: “On your question, I have nothing to offer.”
If the visits take place, it will be Xi’s first foreign tour since the third week of January, 2020, when he went to Myanmar for just over a day.
The SCO founded in Shanghai in June 2001 comprises eight member states: China, India, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Russia, Pakistan, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan.
The confirmation of Xi’s visit by the Russian ambassador in Beijing comes on the day when China’s number three leader, Li Zhanshu, is expected to meet Putin on the sidelines of an economic forum in Vladivostok in what will be the most senior-level meeting between the two countries since Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine, a sign of close bilateral ties.
Li is also the first senior Chinese leader to leave the country since the Covid-19 pandemic began to spread globally from China in the month of January, 2020.
Since the pandemic, China has kept in-person diplomacy limited: It was only at the beginning of Winter Olympics in Beijing in February this year that Xi met dozens of world leaders after two years.
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 told Denisov last week that Beijing expects to join hands with Russia to continue mutual friendship and development.
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.
