2024-05-08 05:28:00
Chinese President Xi Jinping is visiting Serbia with a delegation of 400 people. The two-day visit is dedicated to strengthening relations between Belgrade and Beijing.
On the occasion of the visit of the President of the People’s Republic of China, the President of Serbia Alexander Vučić announced in February 2024 during a reception offered by the Head of State to the Chinese Ambassador to Serbia on the occasion of the Lunar New Year. The date of the visit of the President of the People’s Republic of China to Serbia is significant in that on May 7, 1999, while NATO was bombing Yugoslavia for a month and a half, the Chinese embassy in Belgrade was attacked, resulting in the death of three employees and the injuries of twenty other Chinese citizens. Beijing was outraged and demanded an explanation, but NATO called the incident an “accident.”
In an article published yesterday in the Belgrade daily Politika, the Chinese president said:
“The friendship between China and Serbia, imbued with the bloodshed of the two peoples, has become the common memory of the two peoples and will encourage the two sides to take great strides together.”
Xi Jinping last visited the Western Balkans in 2016. Before that, the President of the People’s Republic of China had not visited Serbia for thirty years.
The President of the People’s Republic of China was welcomed by President Aleksandar Vucic. The two heads of state plan to discuss multimillion-dollar Chinese investments and new cooperation opportunities, and members of the delegation are expected to sign around 30 bilateral agreements. During their visit in 2016, Xi Jinping and Aleksandar Vucic signed a strategic agreement between the two countries, and during the Serbian president’s visit to Beijing last year, 18 agreements were signed, including a free trade agreement .
Serbia, which is seeking European Union membership, has close relations with China and Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic visited Beijing in October last year. Serbia is also a member of the Belt and Road Initiative, and one of the biggest projects in the region is the construction of the Belgrade-Budapest high-speed railway line, the Serbian section of which will be completed before the end of the year. This project will be implemented thanks to Chinese loans.
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