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Chinese language President Xi Jinping hosted a banquet on Saturday for heads of state and worldwide organisations attending the Winter Olympics, a part of a diplomatic blitz following almost two years with out face-to-face conferences as a result of pandemic.
Dozens of dignitaries — many from autocratic nations pleasant to Beijing — had been handled to musical performances and a standard handicrafts show alongside the meal on the Nice Corridor of the Individuals, state media reported.
Xi has launched a diplomatic marathon within the leadup to the Video games, assembly with Russian president and “previous pal” Vladimir Putin on Friday and attending the Olympics opening ceremony later within the day with dozens of overseas friends.
This week’s conferences are a hanging change for Xi, who has prevented travelling overseas or assembly overseas guests face-to-face because the begin of the Covid-19 pandemic in 2020.
China has largely closed its borders for the final two years in a zero-Covid technique that has seen each day infections dwindle.
Beijing is eager to shore up worldwide help and pull off a Video games that may burnish its status, regardless of a number of nations together with america, Australia, Britain, and Canada saying diplomatic boycotts over China’s rights file.
In addition to Putin, the banquet guestlist included Egypt’s President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi and Saudi Arabia’s Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, in addition to a handful of leaders from Europe and the Asia Pacific, based on Chinese language state media.
Heads of worldwide our bodies together with the World Well being Group’s Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, whom state media mentioned was among the many Olympic torchbearers, had been additionally invited.
The Chinese language president had particular person conferences with leaders on the sidelines of the banquet on Saturday, reaffirming his help for Kazakhstan’s President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev, state broadcaster CCTV reported.
Beijing praised Tokayev’s “sturdy measures” towards protesters earlier this yr after the Kazakh chief took a hardline method to quell demonstrations — together with authorising his forces to shoot to kill.
Official photographs confirmed an enormous banquet desk that includes a miniature winter panorama as its centerpiece, lit from above by crystal chandeliers.
CCTV confirmed masked friends together with Worldwide Olympic Committee president Thomas Bach inspecting conventional clay collectible figurines and painted kites within the Nice Corridor of the Individuals as a Chinese language musical group performed.
Xi was photographed greeting and posing for pictures with Putin on Friday with each males going maskless, despite the fact that the Russian chief had skipped the prolonged quarantine interval usually required in China for folks arriving from abroad.
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