Putin meets Xi Jinping in Beijing as two-day state visit to China begins

Vladimir Putin met with Chinese President Xi Jinping in Beijing on Thursday, having arrived in the Chinese capital on Wednesday evening for a two-day state visit that is also his first foreign trip since he was inaugurated for a fifth term in office earlier this month.

Putin’s second visit to China in less than a year began with an official welcome ceremony on Thursday morning, the Kremlin said, before Putin and Xi met at Beijing’s Great Hall of the People to discuss “comprehensive partnership and strategic interaction” between the two countries as well as “current international and regional problems”.

During the official talks, Xi greeted Putin as his “great friend” and called ties between Russia and China a “model for relations between major powers”.

Putin, meanwhile, said that relations between the two countries were “not opportunistic and not directed against anyone” and called cooperation between Russia and China “one of the main stabilising factors on the international stage”.

“Together, we uphold the principles of justice and a democratic world order that reflects multipolar realities and is based on international law”, Putin said.

During his two-day visit, Putin is due to attend a gala event in Beijing marking 75 years of Sino-Russian relations, as well as visit the Russia-China Expo and the Russia-China Forum on Interregional Cooperation in the northeastern city of Harbin, the Kremlin said.