China's Xi to visit Serbia on 25th anniversary of NATO embassy attack

Chinese President Xi Jinping is set to visit Serbia on the 25th anniversary of the NATO bombing of the Chinese embassy in Belgrade.

Xi will visit France, Serbia and Hungary from May 5-10, Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Hua Chunying announced in Beijing on Monday.

Serbian state press agency Tanjug said Xi will arrive in Belgrade on the invitation of President Aleksandar Vučić on May 7, exactly 25 years after the attack which killed three Chinese journalists and led to fury in Beijing. NATO called the bombing an accident.

Serbia has been involved in formal negotiations for EU membership since 2014, but it maintains close relations with the People's Republic, with Vučić visiting Beijing in October.

The Balkan state is a member of the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), China's global investment and infrastructure project. Chinese investment helped to finance the construction of a 350-kilometre high-speed rail link between Belgrade and Budapest.

Xi's visit to Serbia will follow a two-day stay in France, which he last visited in March 2019, after an invitation from French President Emmanuel Macron.

The French presidential office said discussions would be held on the war in Ukraine, the Middle East conflict, economic cooperation and climate change.

The Chinese head of state's meeting with Macron will take place just a few weeks after German Chancellor Olaf Scholz visited China in mid-April.

Xi will end his European trip in Hungary, one of the few EU member states to also be part of the BRI.

Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán is considered friendly with China and has recently signed deals with Chinese companies.

BYD, China's largest electric vehicle manufacturer, plans to build a plant in Hungary, while the Central European country is also set to host a factory for Chinese battery giant CATL.