Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) is to visit Kazakhstan next week for a state visit, Interfax reported, in what would be his first trip overseas in more than two-and-a-half years.
Xi accepted the Kazakh President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev’s invitation to visit the Central Asian nation on Wednesday next week, the Russian news agency reported, citing Kazakh Ministry of Foreign Affairs spokesman Aibek Smadiyarov.
The two leaders would sign a variety of agreements during the visit, it added.
Photo: AFP
The Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs did not respond to a request for comment.
The trip would mark a return to the world stage for Xi, the only G20 leader who has not traveled abroad throughout the COVID-19 pandemic. While Xi made a brief visit to Hong Kong in July, he has not set foot outside Chinese territory since January 2020.
The timing would be unusual even in pre-pandemic times. Chinese leaders rarely travel abroad in the months of intense domestic politicking before the Chinese Communist Party’s twice-a-decade National Congress, which is set to start in Beijing on Oct. 16. Xi is widely expected to secure a precedent-breaking third term at the gathering.
Yet geopolitical tensions are running high in the wake of US House of Representatives Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s trip to Taiwan last month. China responded by conducting live-fire military drills around Taiwan. Beijing has sought to gain diplomatic support for its position on Taiwan, pushing back on calls by the US and its allies to exercise restraint.
Xi might also attend a meeting of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization scheduled for Thursday and Friday next week in neighboring Uzbekistan. The group, which China sees as a counter to Western alliances, also includes Russia, India, Pakistan and other Central Asian nations.
Niva Yau (邱芷恩), a senior researcher at the OSCE Academy in Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan, said for Xi Central Asia is the “perfect pivot” for whatever is to come regarding Taiwan and any other developments in East Asia.
Another, more practical reason for selecting Kazakhstan is that it is the most important country for China to continue its Xinjiang policy, Yau added.
“If there’s any country that can make a difference regarding what China does in Xinjiang with the Turkic population there, it would be Kazakhstan,” she said.
It is also a strategic mineral source: Kazakhstan has 40 percent of the world’s uranium, which could become increasingly important as developed countries look to atomic energy as a reliable source of zero-carbon power in the coming decades.
A US YouTuber who caused outrage for filming himself kissing a statue commemorating Korean wartime sex slaves has been sentenced to six months in prison, a court in Seoul said yesterday. Johnny Somali, 25, gained notoriety several years ago for recording himself doing a series of provocative stunts in South Korea and Japan, and streaming them on platforms such as YouTube and Twitch. South Korean authorities indicted Somali — whose real name is Ramsey Khalid Ismael — in 2024 on public order violations and obstruction of business, and banned him from leaving the country. “The court has sentenced him to six months in
Former Lima mayor Rafael Lopez Aliaga, a Peruvian presidential hopeful, gathered hundreds of supporters in Lima on Tuesday and gave authorities 24 hours to annul the first round of the country’s election over allegations of fraud. Lopez Aliaga is locked in a tight three-way race with two other candidates for second place in Sunday’s vote. The election runner-up wins a ticket to June’s presidential run-off against front-runner Keiko Fujimori. “I am giving them 24 hours to declare this electoral fraud null and void,” said Lopez Aliaga, surrounded by a crowd of several hundred supporters. “If it is not declared null and void tomorrow,
PAPAL RETORT: Pope Leo told reporters that he has ‘no fear, neither of the Trump administration nor speaking out loudly about the message of the Gospel’ US President Donald Trump has feuded with Pope Leo XIV over the Iran conflict — setting off an unholy row that could have serious political implications for the Republican leader back in the US. Trump has drawn barbs even from some allies over the attacks on the US-born pontiff, who has criticized the Trump administration over its immigration crackdown, the intervention in Venezuela and the Iran war. The president risks alienating the religious right in November’s crucial US midterm elections. So far the unprecedented clash between the leader of the most powerful military on Earth and the head of the world’s 1.4 billion
A 16-year-old boy has been charged with murder and aggravated sexual abuse in Florida in the death of his 18-year-old stepsister on a Carnival Cruise ship, the US Department of Justice said on Monday. Timothy Hudson was initially charged in February and subsequently indicted on March 10, but the breadth of the case was not known until a seal was lifted on Friday last week, weeks after US District Judge Beth Bloom in Miami said that he would be prosecuted as an adult at the request of the government. Anna Kepner had been traveling on the Carnival Horizon ship in November last
RSS