Xi, Putin to attend G20 summit in Indonesia's Bali this November
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[August 19, 2022]
(Reuters) - Chinese and
Russian leaders Xi Jinping and Vladimir Putin will attend the G20 summit
on the resort island of Bali this November, a longtime adviser to the
Indonesian president said on Friday.
Andi Widjajanto, former cabinet secretary and unofficial adviser to
President Joko Widodo, who is popularly known as Jokowi, told Reuters
the two leaders would join the summit.
"Jokowi told me that Xi and Putin are both planning to attend in Bali,"
Widjajanto, who heads the National Resilience Institute, told Reuters.
On Thursday, Jokowi told Bloomberg News that both leaders had given him
their assurances. Indonesian presidential officials did not respond to
requests for confirmation of the report.
The Chinese foreign ministry did not immediately respond to a Reuters
request for comment. A Kremlin spokesperson declined to comment to
Bloomberg, but another official familiar with the situation told the
news agency Putin plans to attend the meeting in person.
The trip would be significant given it would be Xi's first time outside
China since January 2020, when he visited Myanmar.
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China maintains a zero-COVID policy that has all but shut its borders to
international travel.
Since then, Xi made his only trip outside of mainland China on June 30,
visiting Hong Kong to mark the 25th anniversary of the handover of the
territory from British control.
Xi is widely expected to secure a precedent-breaking third leadership
term during a once-in-five-years congress of the ruling Communist Party
scheduled for this autumn, most likely before he would head to Bali for
the mid-November G20 gathering.
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![](../images/081922PIX/news_t10.jpg)
Russian President Vladimir Putin meets
with Chinese President Xi Jinping in Beijing, China, February 4,
2022. Sputnik/Aleksey Druzhinin/Kremlin via REUTERS
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No dates have been announced for the party congress, but the last
two took place in late October and early November.
Chinese officials are also reportedly making plans for a November
meeting in Southeast Asia between Xi and U.S. President Joe Biden,
who is expected to attend the G20 summit in Bali, according to a
report in the Wall Street Journal.
As head of the G20 this year, Indonesia has faced pressure from
Western countries to withdraw its invitation to Putin over his
country's invasion on Ukraine, which his government calls a "special
military operation".
Indonesia has also invited Ukrainian leader Volodymyr Zelenskiy to
attend the Bali summit.
Jokowi has sought to position himself as mediator between the
warring countries, and has in recent months travelled to meet both
the Ukrainian and Russian presidents to call for an end to the war,
and seek ways to ease the global food crisis.
This week, Jokowi said both countries have accepted Indonesia as a
"bridge of peace".
(Reporting by Ananda Teresia and Tony Munroe; Writing by Kanupriya
Kapoor and Kate Lamb; Editing by Gerry Doyle)
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