Top European leaders have been invited to meet Chinese President Xi Jinping in Beijing in November but have yet to decide whether to accept, reports the South China Morning Post. Invitations have been sent to German Chancellor Olaf Scholz, French President Emmanuel Macron, Italian Prime Minister Mario Draghi and Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez, according to a senior source familiar with the situation.
The proposed date would likely be right after the 20th party congress, expected to be held in October.
The trips would coincide with the G20 leaders’ summit in Bali that month and would mark a return to China for Western European leaders, following almost three years of a zero-Covid policy that has put a block on in-person, in-China diplomacy.