Putin To Visit China In May

Wires carrying comments from Russian President Vladimir Putin confirming that he will travel to China in May. It will be Putin's first international trip since he secured a new six-year term at the Russian Presidential Election in March.

• Reuters reported in late March that, according to Kremlin sources, Putin's trip to China would probably take place in the second half of May. Two of the sources said the Putin visit would come before Xi's planned trip to Europe.
• Notably, the announcement comes as US Secretary of State Antony Blinken continues a trip to China which isn't expected to deliver any concrete breakthroughs on a raft of US concerns over Chinese support of Russia, industrial overcapacity, "unfair" business practices, and confrontational behavior in the South China Sea.
• Concurrent to the Blinken trip, China’s security chief Chen Wenqing has been in St Petersburg attending security talks with Russian counterparts at an international conference of intelligence chiefs, also attended by security officials from Iran, Brazil, South Africa, China, India, and Iraq.
• Bloomberg reports that Chen and Russia’s Security Council Secretary Nikolai Patrushev discussed, "strengthening ties between the special services and law enforcement agencies of their two countries at talks on Tuesday."
• Putin last visited China in October last year for China’s third Belt and Road Initiative forum. In a readout of Putin-Xi meeting at that event, Xi stated that, “developing the China-Russia comprehensive strategic partnership of coordination with ever-lasting good neighborliness and mutually beneficial cooperation is not an expediency, but a long-term commitment.”