Chinese and Russian presidents Xi Jinping and Vladimir Putin will attend the G20 conference in November on the resort island of Bali, an Indonesian president's longstanding aide said on Friday.
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| Russian President Vladimir Putin meets with Chinese President Xi Jinping |
Andi Widjajanto, former cabinet secretary and unofficial adviser to President Joko Widodo, often known as Jokowi, said the two leaders will attend the conference.
"Jokowi told me that Xi and Putin are both likely to attend in Bali," said Widjajanto, the director of the National Resilience Institute.
On Thursday, Jokowi told Bloomberg News that both leaders had given him guarantees. Indonesian presidential authorities did not reply to queries for confirmation of the news.
The Chinese Foreign Ministry did not immediately reply to a request for comment. A Kremlin representative declined to comment to Bloomberg, but another individual familiar with the matter informed the news agency that Putin intends to attend the meeting in person.
The trip would be notable since it would be Xi's first time outside of China since visiting Myanmar in January 2020.
China has a zero-COVID policy, effectively closing its borders to foreign travel.
Since then, Xi has made only one journey outside of mainland China, to Hong Kong, to commemorate the 25th anniversary of the territory's liberation from British sovereignty.
Xi is generally anticipated to clinch a record-breaking third leadership term during the ruling Communist Party's once-every-five-years session this autumn, most likely before traveling to Bali for the mid-November G20 meeting.
The party congress has not yet been scheduled, but the last two were held in late October and early November.
Jokowi has moved to position himself as a mediator between the warring countries and has recently traveled to meet with the presidents of Ukraine and Russia to urge an end to the war and to seek measures to alleviate the global food crisis.
Jokowi stated that both nations have recognized Indonesia as a "bridge of peace."
According to the Wall Street Journal, Chinese officials are also planning a November meeting in Southeast Asia between Xi and US President Joe Biden, who is slated to attend the G20 conference in Bali.
As G20 president this year, Indonesia has been under pressure from Western countries to rescinding its invitation to Putin in response to his country's invasion of Ukraine, which his government describes as a "special military operation."
The Indonesian government has also invited Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky to the Bali meeting.