BEIJING, Feb 5 (Reuters) – Chinese President Xi Jinping held talks with the leaders of Serbia, Egypt, Kazakhstan and Turkmenistan on Saturday, taking advantage of the opening of the Beijing Winter Olympics to take diplomatic initiatives in a context of tensions with the United States.
Following these meetings, which are added to Friday’s meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin, Xi Jinping presided over a banquet at the Great Hall of the People marking the Lunar New Year. It is the first time that the Chinese president has attended such a gathering of heads of state since the start of the COVID-19 epidemic in late 2019.
In a welcome toast, Xi Jinping expressed “sincere thanks to all governments, peoples and international organizations who care about and support the Beijing Winter Olympics.”
“China has done its utmost to overcome the impact of the coronavirus outbreak, sincerely fulfilled its solemn commitments to the international community, and ensured that the Beijing Winter Olympics will go ahead as planned,” he said. he added, according to a text of the speech published by the Xinhua news agency.
About 30 foreign leaders attended Beijing’s opening ceremony of the Winter Olympics, diplomatically boycotted by the United States and other Western countries amid geopolitical tensions and accusations of human rights abuses. man in the Xinjiang region of northwest China.
The Global Times, run by the ruling Communist Party’s People’s Daily, hit back at foreign media comments that the event attracted only “authoritarian” leaders, accusing them in an editorial of resorting to “anti-authoritarian cliches”. -outdated Chinese”.
Xi Jinping spoke in particular on Saturday morning with the President of Kazakhstan, Kassym-Jomart Tokayev, with the Serbian Aleksandar Vucic as well as with the Egyptian President Abdel Fatta Al-Sisi, Xinhua reported. On the menu for discussion: cooperation in transport infrastructure and in the fight against COVID-19.
Also according to Xinhua, Xi Jinping told Turkmen President Gurbanguly Berdymukhamedov that the two parties should deepen their cooperation in the supply of natural gas to China.
In a joint statement issued after Friday’s meeting between Xi Jinping and Vladimir Putin, the two leaders show their closeness, with Moscow speaking out against Taiwan’s independence and China supporting Russia in its opposition to any form of expansion of NATO.
Russia has amassed 115,000 troops near Ukraine, according to Kiev, but denies any intention of invading the territory of its neighbour, whose Crime Peninsula it annexed in 2014. Moscow is demanding guarantees from the West about its security, including the halting of all NATO expansion towards the East, a demand rejected by the United States and the Atlantic Alliance.
Kevin Rudd, former Australian prime minister and president of the Asia Society, called the joint statement “very significant”.
It is “the first time since the Sino-Soviet split that China has taken a definitive stand on European security to support Russia on something as fundamental as NATO,” he said on Saturday.
Taiwan said the timing of the convergence was “undesirable”, adding that the Chinese government was shaming the spirit of the Olympics. (David Stanway; French version Elizabeth Pineau)