Chinese President Xi Jinping and Russian President Vladimir Putin are holding a crucial meeting ahead of the launching of Beijing Olympics to discuss regional security and bilateral issues.
International media reports said China’s President Xi Jinping is poised for his first face-to-face meeting with Russia’s Vladimir Putin as tensions grow with the West over the Ukraine crisis.
Xi and Putin are meeting in Beijing before the issuance of a joint statement reflecting their “common views” on security and other issues.
A Kremlin official said the two leaders will then attend the Olympic opening ceremony on Friday (Feb 4) evening.
Meanwhile, on Feb 3, 2022, officials of both the countries said they are coordinating their positions on Ukraine during a meeting between both countries’ foreign ministers in Beijing.
China expressed “understanding and support” for Russia’s position on security relating to Russia’s relationship with the US and NATO, after Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi met with Russian counterpart Sergey Lavrov.
Moreover, both sides coordinated their positions on regional issues of common concern, such as Ukraine, Afghanistan and the situation on the Korean Peninsula, the statement said.
Two photos released by the Chinese Foreign Ministry showed both men doing elbow bumps while masked. Before Lavrov, Beijing has not received foreign political guests for almost two years as it tries to keep the country’s capital free of Covid-19.
Xi has not left China since January 2020, when the country was grappling with its initial Covid-19 outbreak and locked down the central city of Wuhan where the virus was first detected.
He is now readying to meet more than 20 leaders as Beijing kicks off a Winter Olympics it hopes will be a soft-power triumph and shift focus away from a build-up blighted by a diplomatic boycott and Covid fears.
