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.

Putin is accompanied by a large delegation of officials, including new Defence Minister Andrey Belousov and Sergey Shoigu, whom Belousov replaced this week, in his new role as secretary of Russia’s Security Council.

Russia and China had previously declared a “no limits partnership” during a visit by Putin to Beijing in February 2022, just days before Russia launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine. In an interview with Chinese state news agency Xinhua published on the eve of his latest visit, Putin praised China’s “approaches to resolving the crisis in Ukraine”.

Putin’s visit follows a tradition of the two leaders visiting each other’s countries after their inauguration ceremonies, with the Chinese president having travelled to Moscow for his first foreign visit after his re-election in March 2023.

China was also one of the first countries Putin visited after the International Criminal Court issued a warrant for his arrest in March 2023 obliging its 124 member states — of which China is not one — to arrest him if he sets foot on their territory.