Xi Jinping and Vladimir Putin will attend the G20 summit on the resort island of Bali this November, an adviser to the Indonesian president has said.
Andi Widjajanto – unofficial adviser to President Joko “Jokowi” Widodo – told Reuters the Chinese and Russian leaders would attend.
On Thursday, Widodo 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 planned to attend.
The trip would be significant given it would be Xi’s first time outside China since January 2020, when he visited Myanmar. Since then, Xi made his only trip outside the Chinese mainland on 30 June, visiting Hong Kong to mark the 25th anniversary of its handover from British control.
China maintains a zero-Covid policy that has all but shut its borders to international travel.
Xi is widely expected to secure a precedent-breaking third leadership term during a congress of the ruling Communist party scheduled for this northern autumn, most likely before he would head to Bali for the mid-November G20 gathering.
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 south-east Asia between Xi and Joe Biden. The US president is expected to attend the G20 summit in Bali.
As head of the G20 this year, Indonesia has faced pressure from western countries to withdraw its invitation to Putin over Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
Indonesia has also invited the Ukrainian president, Volodymyr Zelenskiy, to attend.
Widodo has sought to position himself as mediator, 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, Widodo said both countries have accepted Indonesia as a “bridge of peace”.
