At the invitation of Chinese President Xi Jinping, Indonesian President Joko Widodo will visit China next week, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Hua Chunying announced on Thursday. The visit will take place from July 25 to 26, reported Xinhua. This visit comes after China’s Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) was confronted about its global influence at the Group of Seven G7 summits held in Germany. His visit aimed to reassert China’s ties with these countries. Earlier, the Chinese foreign minister Wang Yi co-hosted the second meeting of the China-Indonesia High-level dialogue Cooperation Mechanism with Indonesia’s Coordinating Minister for Cooperation with China, Luhut Binsar Pandjaitan. Wang said Widodo would hold meetings with Xi and with Premier Li Keqiang for an exchange of in-depth views. Indonesia currently holds the G20 presidency and will host this year’s summit of G20 leaders in Bali on November 15-16.
“When the Indonesian President visits China, he can communicate face-to-face with the Chinese leadership,” Wang said.
U.S president Joe Biden during the NATO summit announced plans to raise USD 600 billion to create a new G& initiative- also known as the Partnership for Global Infrastructure and Investment (PGII)- to counteract China’s global influence through its Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) as well as the number of recent developments in its naval and military programs. The PGII initiative seeks to offer an alternative to infrastructure models that sell “debt traps” the white house said following Biden’s announcement on June 26.
NATO also unveiled its new strategic concept, pointing out that the alliance faces “systematic competition” from China that challenges its values and interests.
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The alliance also noted China’s malicious hybrid and cyber operations and its confrontational rhetoric and disinformation target allies and harm alliance security. The NATO document states that Beijing seeks to control key technologies and industrial sectors, critical infrastructure, and strategic materials and supply chains.
Meanwhile, Pakistan and China pledged to strengthen bilateral ties and cooperation during their meeting.
Aside from the Winter Olympics, Beijing has not hosted any foreign leaders individually since strict border measures were put in place in 2020 following the outbreak of COVID-19.
