Xi Jinping is expected to travel abroad again

Xi Jinping, general secretary of the Communist Party and president of China, is one of the few heads of state in the world who have avoided traveling abroad entirely due to the epidemic. His last trip abroad was to Myanmar in January 2020.

Since then, Xi Jinping, like almost all other political leaders in China, except for Foreign Minister Wang Yi and senior diplomat Yang Jiechi, has stayed at home – to avoid imported cases of the coronavirus. And in the end, to show how serious the Communist Party is in dealing with the epidemic.

Some official statements If Xi Jinping’s trip has not yet taken place in Beijing. But he is also expected to visit Uzbekistan next week to attend a meeting of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization, an organization for security policy in Central Asia. There may be a chance for a meeting between Xi Jinping and Russian President Vladimir Putin. They were last seen in Beijing at the start of the Winter Olympics, when they stated that the close relationship between their two countries knew no bounds.

At the G20 meeting in Bali in mid-November, where Xi Jinping is expected, according to a statement by Indonesian President Joko Widodo, there is a new, and more likely, possibility of a meeting between Xi and Putin.

The strict travel ban appears to be about to end for the Chinese leadership. But what that means for Chinese people in general is unclear. During the pandemic, they were only able to travel because of studying, working or visiting relatives abroad.

Quarantine has been waited for up to three weeks upon return to China. It is not known whether Xi will have to be quarantined when he returns home.

However, not all doors will open at the same time that China finally abandons zero tolerance for the coronavirus. It could end up with a wave of infected and dead, so a very slow return is expected.

One good news in this context is that China has just become the first country to approve an inhaled vaccine for COVID-19.