An official from the Russian government said on Wednesday that Chinese President Xi Jinping and Russian President Vladimir Putin will meet at a meeting in Uzbekistan the following week.
Russian Ambassador to China Andrei Denisov informed reporters that the two presidents will meet during the Shanghai Cooperation Organization summit, which will be place in the city of Samarkand in the country of Uzbekistan on September 15 and 16.
“Another gathering of our heads of state will take place at the SCO summit in Samarkand in a little less than ten days from now. According to Denisov, who was speaking as cited by Russia’s state-run news service Tass, “We are actively preparing for it.”
If all goes according to plan, Xi will be making his first journey outside of China in over two and a half years when he travels to Uzbekistan. It has been claimed by Russian media that Xi intends to visit Kazakhstan before to the meeting in Uzbekistan; however, these allegations have not been substantiated as of yet.
Mao Ning, a spokeswoman for the Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs, responded on Wednesday at a daily briefing to a query concerning a trip to Uzbekistan by saying, “On your question, I have nothing to contribute.”
The two leaders last got together in February in Beijing, which was only a few short weeks before the Kremlin ordered soldiers into Ukraine. The two presidents presided over the signing of an agreement that pledged that there would be “no boundaries” placed on the relations between the two parties. It is not known for certain whether or not Xi was aware of Russia’s intention to carry out in Ukraine what Russia refers to as “a special military operation” at the time.
China has made efforts to seem impartial and avoid any consequences from aiding the Russian economy despite international sanctions. This is in spite of the fact that China is providing Russia with implicit support for Russia’s operation in Ukraine.
Moscow and Beijing have increasingly linked their foreign policies to resist liberal democratic movements in Asia, Europe, and beyond. In doing so, they have taken a stance in favor of authoritarian government with closed borders and little concern for free speech, minority rights, or opposition politics.
The Russian military held expansive military drills in the east of the country that began the previous week and ended this past Wednesday. These drills involved forces from China, which is another show of the increasingly close ties between Moscow and Beijing in the midst of tensions with the West over the military action in Ukraine.
Putin has said that a military alliance between Russia and China is a possibility, despite the fact that both Moscow and Beijing have previously dismissed the idea of forming such a partnership. In addition to this, he has made the observation that Russia has been providing China with extremely sensitive military technology, which has assisted China in greatly enhancing its capacity for defensive operations.
