Putin to visit China next week, days after Trump trip: report

Vladimir Putin, the Russian President, will pay a visit to China the following week after US President Donald Trump ends his three-day visit to the country, South China Morning Post reported in a story on Friday.

According to the story in the Post, the visit, which will be made in one day, will occur on May 20. The sources cited by the Post said the visit was part of the regular visits that Moscow makes to Beijing without much expectation for any big show of a grand welcome.

So far, neither Beijing nor Moscow has confirmed the schedule.

Donald Trump ended his three-day trip to China on Friday. In a first trip to China in nine years by a US President, Trump met with Chinese President Xi Jinping to talk about various things including trade, Taiwan and the Middle East problem.

This is expected to be the first time when China hosts the two heads of state in the same month outside any multilateral framework.

The last direct meeting of Putin and Xi Jinping occurred on February 4 by means of video conferencing.

Dmitry Peskov, the Kremlin spokesperson, mentioned in an interview held on Thursday that Putin is set to pay China a visit soon.

"This will be announced in the near future. This visit is being prepared. You could say that the visit is fully prepared, only the finishing touches remain. This will happen in the near future," he said.

When asked whether there were prospects for further Russian-Chinese contact after the visit by the U.S. leader to China, Peskov assured that Putin's team expects to contact Xi regardless of Trump's visit to China.

"Putin will be discussing the entire spectrum of relations – bilateral ones, the special privileged strategic partnership, the volume of economic cooperation amounting to more than $200 billion, and naturally international affairs," he stated on Friday.