China’s Xi to visit Belgrade this year, Serbian President says

Chinese leader Xi Jinping will visit Serbia in 2024, Bloomberg reported on Feb. 27, citing a post by Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic on his website.

Read also: Ukraine wants China to participate in negotiations to end the war — Yermak

The trip was confirmed in talks with Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi, he said at a ceremony organized for Chinese Ambassador to Serbia Li Ming.

Vucic said he couldn’t provide the exact date of the Chinese president’s planned visit, but promised to create a good atmosphere for “one of the most important world leaders.”

Xi’s decision to travel to Serbia would mark his first visit to Europe in more than four years, excluding a border hop in March 2023 to visit Russian dictator Vladimir Putin. His last trip to Europe before that came in 2019 when he visited Greece months before the global pandemic closed China’s borders for three years and clipped Xi’s own travel agenda.

While Beijing’s relationship with the EU frayed during the pandemic over Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and the ruling Communist Party’s trade policies, China and Serbia have cultivated closer ties in recent years.

Read also: Serb President ‘horrified’ by Russian actions on Navalny, could affect Serb-Russian ties – Vučić

Chinese state media frequently reported on Beijing providing aid to the Balkan nation during the pandemic and on Vucic defending the Asian country’s strict Covid polices.

Xi and Vucic met in October last year at the Belt and Road Forum in Beijing, also attended by Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán and Putin. The Chinese leader described Serbia as “an ironclad friend.”  That month, the two countries canceled tariffs on some 90% of tax items under a new free-trade agreement.

It comes as the EU, which does not have a free trade agreement with Beijing, is seeking to "de-risk" from China and deploy more of its trade arsenal against what it sees as China's unfair trading practices, Politico wrote on Oct. 18.

Read also: Serbian President announced that western Balkans – Ukraine summit to be held soon

Last December, China’s central bank said that a new yuan clearing arrangement with Serbia would help businesses and financial institutions to use the currency for more cross-border transactions. Beijing has been promoting greater use of its currency in a bid to reduce dependency on the dollar.

In 2022, China was Serbia's second-largest trading partner, with trade between the two countries amounting to $6.15 billion.

Earlier, Croatian Foreign Affairs Minister Gordan Grlić-Radman called Serbian President Aleksandar Vučić a "satellite" of Russia in an interview with N1 TV channel.

We’re bringing the voice of Ukraine to the world. Support us with a one-time donation, or become a Patron!

Read the original article on The New Voice of Ukraine