Putin meets Xi as tensions rise with West

China's President Xi Jinping held his first face-to-face talks with a world leader in nearly two years on Friday, meeting Russia's Vladimir Putin who hailed "unprecedented" ties between the neighbours as tensions grow with the West, reports BSS/AFP.

Xi has not left China since January 2020, when the country was grappling with its initial Covid-19 outbreak and locked down the central city of Wuhan where the virus was first detected.

He is now embarking on a sudden flurry of diplomatic activity as more than 20 world leaders fly in for the Winter Olympics, an event China hopes will be a soft-power triumph and a shift away from a build-up blighted by a diplomatic boycott and Covid fears.

The two leaders met in the Chinese capital as their countries seek to deepen relations in the face of increasing criticism from the West.

Xi said he believed the meeting would "inject more vitality into China-Russia relations," according to CCTV.

A document agreed by the countries said they "oppose the further expansion of NATO" and called for the US-led defence bloc to abandon "Cold War era" approaches, the Kremlin said in a briefing afterwards.

Moscow is looking for support after its deployment of 100,000 troops near its border with Ukraine prompted Western nations to warn of an invasion and threaten "severe consequences" in response to any Russian attack.

Putin and Xi also criticised Washington's "negative impact on peace and stability" in the Asia-Pacific region, according to the Kremlin.