Aug 19 (Portal) – Chinese and Russian leaders Xi Jinping and Vladimir Putin will attend the G20 summit on the resort island of Bali this November, a longtime aide to the Indonesian president said on Friday.
Andi Widjajanto, a former cabinet secretary and unofficial adviser to President Joko Widodo, popularly known as Jokowi, told Portal the two leaders would join the summit.
“Jokowi told me that both Xi and Putin plan to attend Bali,” Widjajanto, who heads the National Resilience Institute, told Portal.
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On Thursday, Jokowi told Bloomberg News that both leaders had given him their assurances. Indonesian Presidential officials did not respond to requests to confirm the report.
The Chinese Foreign Ministry did not immediately respond to a Portal request for comment. A Kremlin spokesman declined to comment to Bloomberg, but another official familiar with the situation told the news outlet Putin plans to attend the meeting in person.
The trip would be significant as it would be Xi’s first visit outside of China since January 2020 when he visited Myanmar.
China maintains a zero-COVID policy that has all but closed 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 territory’s handover from British control.
Xi is widely expected to win a landmark third term at the helm during a five-year congress of the ruling Communist Party scheduled for this fall, most likely before he travels to Bali for the G20 meeting in mid-November.
No dates were announced for the party convention, but the last two were held in late October and early November.
Chinese officials are also reportedly planning a November meeting in Southeast Asia between Xi and US President Joe Biden, who is expected to attend the G20 summit in Bali, according to a Wall Street Journal report.
As chair of the G20 this year, Indonesia has faced pressure from Western countries to withdraw its invitation to Putin over his country’s invasion of Ukraine, which his government describes as a “special military operation.”
Indonesia has also invited Ukrainian leader Volodymyr Zelenskyy to attend the Bali summit.
Jokowi has sought to position himself as a mediator between the warring countries, and in recent months has traveled to meet both Ukrainian and Russian presidents to call for an end to the war and seek ways to to alleviate the food crisis.
This week, Jokowi said both countries have accepted Indonesia as a “bridge of peace.”
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Reporting by Ananda Teresia and Tony Munroe; writing by Kanupriya Kapoor and Kate Lamb; Editing by Gerry Doyle
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