After securing the third term at the communist party’s 20th congress, Chinese President Xi Jinping, now, wanted to revive interaction with world leaders in order to bolster China’s image, The Hong Kong Post (HKP) reported.
Within a few days of the 20th National Congress concluded, Xi held meetings with Tanzania, Pakistan, Vietnam, and German leaders. And in this list, German Chancellor Olaf Scholz became the first G7 leader to visit China in 3 years.
Scholz came to China on a quick trip to plead for economic reconciliation between the two countries. After his visit, China issued a statement referring to Xi’s feelings that “the international community would be ‘crossing a line’ by resorting to nuclear force”.
He also said, “China supports the efforts of Germany and Europe to play an important role in promoting peace talks and promoting the building of a balanced, effective, and sustainable European security framework.”
In September, at the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation Summit, Xi Jinping met various countries’ leaders. That was his first visit abroad after the pandemic broke out. The visit showed the importance Xi gave to the Central Asian visits. Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan are China’s friendly neighbors, comprehensive strategic partners, and important members of the BRI, according to HKP.
In the coming years, Xi is expected to attend several key events to assert his country’s stand on common issues and hope for a thaw in the frozen ties with the West. Another event that Xi will not miss is the UN High-level Political Forum on Sustainable Development (HLPF), which will commence in September 2023.
This meeting is also known as the SDG Summit, which will be the second since the adoption of the 2030 Agenda.
Xi Jinping feels that the criticism of China’s outbreak of the pandemic and China’s draconian “zero-covid” policy led to the country’s isolation from the world community over the last two years.
Though China continues to implement the harsh policy, the communist party appears to have decided to relax rules to allow diplomatic visits to Beijing, reported HKP.
The President hinted at his awareness of the world reaction to China when he told the 20th Party Congress about the growing challenges that stem from “a grim and complex international situation,” with “external attempts to suppress and contain China” threatening to “escalate at any time”.
Steve Tsang, director of the University of London’s SOAS China Institute said that the Chinese President has made it clear that the big challenges China will face are a less conducive international environment and that is an area that China must contest, according to HKP citing CNN.
Xi’s apparent ramping up of foreign engagement is likely a bid to counter those headwinds, but also one based on a calculation: “He must have come to some kind of a conclusion that the risk of Covid is more containable than he had thought before,” according to Tsang.
According to HKP citing a CNN report said that Xi’s foreign affairs priorities in the weeks and months ahead will likely continue to focus on shoring up relationships with friendly nations, experts say, as he “finds himself operating in a very different world from the last time he was playing regular host or attending summits like G20 or the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation leaders’ summit – both of which convene later this month and which he is expected to attend, though yet unconfirmed by Beijing”.