After Two Years of Laying Low, Xi Emerges With a Flurry of Presidential Diplomacy on the Olympic Sidelines

From top left: Russian President Vladimir Putin, Ecuadorian President Guillermo Lasso, Egyptian President Abdel-Fattah al-Sisi, Kazakh President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev, Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic and Qatari Emir Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani. Images via Xinhua.

Chinese President Xi Jinping emerged from nearly two years of relative diplomatic isolation on Friday for a flurry of one-on-one meetings with some of the 30 heads of state in town for the opening ceremony of the Winter Olympics in Beijing.

President Xi, who hasn’t left China since the pandemic began in January 2020 and hasn’t received any heads of state during that time, engaged in a series of fast-paced bilateral meetings with visiting leaders mostly from strategically-located Belt and Road countries in Central Asia, Asia, South America, Eastern Europe, and the Middle East.

  • Get a daily email packed with the latest China-Africa news and analysis.
  • Read exclusive insights on the key trends shaping China-Africa relations.
  • Full access to the News Feed that provides daily updates on Chinese engagement in Africa and throughout the Global South.

China, Africa and the Global South... find out what’s happening.

Subscribe today for unlimited access.

OR

Already a subscriber? Log in Click Here to Learn More
by Eric Olander

Most Read

1
Developing Countries’ Debt Servicing Costs to China Are Significant, but Nowhere Near as Much as Other Creditors
2 Chinese Military Fans Discuss Why Indonesia Bought Rafale Instead of J-10C
3
Indonesia Begins $5.9 Billion Chinese EV Battery Project Despite Environment Fears
4
Chinese Cargo Planes Secretly Ferrying Supplies to Iran, Claim Online Sleuths
5
Indonesia Goes Nuclear, Taps China and Russia for Modular Reactors
6
China, U.S. Ink Rare Earth Deal; More Trade Pacts Coming

You Might Like

China to Provide Egypt With an Additional 300,000 Doses of Sinopharm COVID-19 Vaccine

Minister of Health and Population Hala Zayed announced that China will provide an additional 300,000 doses of COVID-19 vaccines to Egypt in the coming days, the second such donation in as many months. ...

UAE to Become First Country Outside of China to Manufacture Sinopharm COVID-19 Vaccines

Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi closed out his Persian Gulf tour on Sunday with a major announcement that the United Arab Emirates would become the first country outside of China to manufacture the ...

Chinese Embassies, Ambassadors Stay Largely Quiet on the China CDC Director’s Vaccine Efficacy Controversy

China’s normally bombastic diplomatic Twitter accounts in Africa were uncharacteristically silent on Monday with regards to the controversy that broke out over the weekend when Gao Fu, the director of the China CDC, ...

While China’s Global Vaccine Distributions Close in on a Billion Doses Delivered, Africa’s Share Remains Small

While China ramps up its global vaccine distributions, particularly in Asia, deliveries to African countries have remained consistently modest since the beginning of the pandemic. So far, only 61.1 million doses have been ...

What is The China-Global South Project?

Independent

The China-Global South Project is passionately independent, non-partisan and does not advocate for any country, company or culture.

News

A carefully curated selection of the day’s most important China-Global South stories. Updated 24 hours a day by human editors. No bots, no algorithms.

Analysis

Diverse, often unconventional insights from scholars, analysts, journalists and a variety of stakeholders in the China-Global South discourse.

Networking

A unique professional network of China-Africa scholars, analysts, journalists and other practioners from around the world.

More about CGSP