A meeting between Chinese leader Xi Jinping and visiting Russian President Vladimir Putin has started in Beijing, Chinese state media reports. The talks are taking place at the Great Hall of the People.

Xi welcomed Putin on Wednesday to the Chinese capital, shaking hands with the Russian leader outside the Great Hall of the People. Video by Russian media showed the two leaders walking down a red carpet as a military band played their national anthems.

Al Jazeera’s Katrina Yu, reporting from Beijing, said the visit by Putin and that of the recently concluded trip by US President Donald Trump are very different. Putin is marking 25 years of Sino-Russian friendship and has already visited China 25 times.

“So this visit will really be about deepening existing coordination and cooperation,” Yu said. The two sides are expected to update each other on the situation in the Middle East as well as Ukraine. Xi will also likely discuss with Putin what was discussed with Trump last week.

Putin is being accompanied by a large delegation of Russian businesspeople and government leaders. The Kremlin announced the two leaders will sign some 40 different agreements covering everything from the economy and tourism to education.

“But I think for Putin the main topic of discussion with Xi Jinping is going to be on energy security,” Yu said. “Since the war in Ukraine, any gas sales that were previously heading to Europe have dried up, and Russia is in desperate need of revenue to replace that, especially since we are in the fifth year of the Ukraine war,” she added.

Source: www.aljazeera.com