China, Central Asia ready for milestone summit to build closer ties

As a milestone summit is about to open, China and five Central Asian countries are set to build a closer community with a shared future and send messages of solidarity, peace and development in a volatile world.

Chinese President Xi Jinping will chair the China-Central Asia Summit, the first in-person summit among heads of state of China and Central Asian countries, scheduled for May 18 and 19 in Xi’an, northwest China’s Shaanxi Province. The leaders are expected to draw up new blueprints for China-Central Asia cooperation.

The summit is seen as the latest landmark in the vibrant high-level interactions, economic cooperation and people-to-people exchanges between China and Central Asian countries.

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In 2013, Xi went to Central Asia for the first time as China’s head of state, visiting Turkmenistan, Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan and Kyrgyzstan.

“China and Central Asian countries are friendly neighbors connected by common mountains and rivers. China highly values its friendship and cooperation with these countries and takes them as a foreign policy priority,” Xi said during the trip.

China’s relations with Central Asian countries were upgraded during the visits. The next year, Xi paid a state visit to Tajikistan, during which important consensus was reached on deepening bilateral ties. In the past decade, Xi visited Central Asia seven times and also hosted multiple Central Asian leaders in China. Xi has had indepth exchanges with people from different sectors in the region. China’s relations with Central Asian countries have become a model for building a new type of international relations.