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China’s Xi Jinping Will Visit Russia in 2025, Russian Ambassador Says

Chinese President Xi Jinping, general secretary of the Communist Party of China Central Committee and chairman of the Central Military Commission, greets the audience at a meeting celebrating the 25th anniversary of the establishment of the Macao Special Administrative Region (MSAR) and its handover to China and the inaugural ceremony of the sixth-term government of the Macao Special Administrative Region (SAR) at the Macao East Asian Games Dome in Macao, China, 20 December 2024. (EPA/ Xinhua / Xie Huanchi)
Chinese President Xi Jinping, general secretary of the Communist Party of China Central Committee and chairman of the Central Military Commission, greets the audience at a meeting celebrating the 25th anniversary of the establishment of the Macao Special Administrative Region (MSAR) and its handover to China and the inaugural ceremony of the sixth-term government of the Macao Special Administrative Region (SAR) at the Macao East Asian Games Dome in Macao, China, 20 December 2024. (EPA/ Xinhua / Xie Huanchi)
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China’s Xi Jinping Will Visit Russia in 2025, Russian Ambassador Says

Chinese President Xi Jinping, general secretary of the Communist Party of China Central Committee and chairman of the Central Military Commission, greets the audience at a meeting celebrating the 25th anniversary of the establishment of the Macao Special Administrative Region (MSAR) and its handover to China and the inaugural ceremony of the sixth-term government of the Macao Special Administrative Region (SAR) at the Macao East Asian Games Dome in Macao, China, 20 December 2024. (EPA/ Xinhua / Xie Huanchi)
Chinese President Xi Jinping, general secretary of the Communist Party of China Central Committee and chairman of the Central Military Commission, greets the audience at a meeting celebrating the 25th anniversary of the establishment of the Macao Special Administrative Region (MSAR) and its handover to China and the inaugural ceremony of the sixth-term government of the Macao Special Administrative Region (SAR) at the Macao East Asian Games Dome in Macao, China, 20 December 2024. (EPA/ Xinhua / Xie Huanchi)

China's President Xi Jinping will visit Russia in 2025, Russia's state-run RIA news agency quoted Moscow's ambassador to Beijing as saying early on Friday.

"As for concrete bilateral events, I can say that the appropriate plans are actively being drawn up," ambassador Igor Morgulov told RIA.

"What can be said that is no secret, in terms of priority, is that the chairman of the People's Republic of China is expected in Russia next year."

China's foreign ministry did not immediately respond to a request for confirmation from Reuters.

Putin visited China in February 2022, proclaiming a "no limits" partnership days before he sent tens of thousands of troops into Ukraine. He was in Beijing again last May, after his re-election by a landslide, welcoming a "new era" of relations focusing on opposition to US policy.

Xi was received in the Kremlin as a "dear friend " in 2023 after he obtained an unprecedented third term in office.

Morgulov also told RIA that China, which has refrained from condemning Russia's 34-month-old war in Ukraine, understood the basis for the conflict "inasmuch as they are coming up against many of the same challenges -- the US and its allies are boosting pressure on China in the Asia-Pacific region".

NATO, he said, is "devising plans to move its military infrastructure" into the region.

Russia and China had to respond to US policy jointly, he said.

"In the international arena, it is up to our countries to respond further with a 'dual counter-action' to the 'dual deterrence' which the West is trying to pursue with regard to Russia and China," RIA quoted him as saying.

China, working with Brazil, has put forward a peace plan for the Ukraine war, calling for a freezing of battle lines and taking into account the security interests of both sides.

Russia has expressed support for the proposals.

Ukraine, which has proposed its own plans to end the conflict - the latest of which includes a request for NATO membership - has dismissed the China-Brazil initiative as serving Moscow's interests.

Russian forces currently occupy about 20% of Ukraine's territory and have recently been advancing at their fastest pace since the early days of the war.

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Urgency Mounts in Search for Survivors of Powerful Tibet Earthquake

This handout received on January 7, 2025 shows damaged houses in Shigatse, southwestern China's Tibet region, after an earthquake hit the area. (AFP photo / Handout)
This handout received on January 7, 2025 shows damaged houses in Shigatse, southwestern China's Tibet region, after an earthquake hit the area. (AFP photo / Handout)
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Urgency Mounts in Search for Survivors of Powerful Tibet Earthquake

This handout received on January 7, 2025 shows damaged houses in Shigatse, southwestern China's Tibet region, after an earthquake hit the area. (AFP photo / Handout)
This handout received on January 7, 2025 shows damaged houses in Shigatse, southwestern China's Tibet region, after an earthquake hit the area. (AFP photo / Handout)

Over 400 people trapped by rubble in earthquake-stricken Tibet were rescued, Chinese officials said on Wednesday, with an unknown number still unaccounted for after a tremor rocked the Himalayan foothills and shifted the region's landscape.

The epicenter of Tuesday's magnitude 6.8 quake, one of the region's most powerful tremors in recent years, was located in Tingri in China's Tibet, about 80 km (50 miles) north of Mount Everest, the world's highest mountain. It also shook buildings in neighboring Nepal, Bhutan and India.

The quake was so strong that part of the terrain at and around the epicenter slipped as much as 1.6m (5.2 feet) over a distance of 80 km (50 miles), according to an analysis by the United States Geological Survey.

Twenty-four hours after the temblor struck, those trapped under rubble would have endured a night in sub-zero temperatures, adding to the pressure on rescuers looking for survivors in an area the size of Cambodia.

Temperatures in the high-altitude region dropped as low as minus 18 degrees Celsius (0 degrees Fahrenheit) overnight. People trapped or those without shelter are at risk of rapid hypothermia and may only be able to live for five to 10 hours even if uninjured, experts say.

At least 126 people were known to have been killed and 188 injured on the Tibetan side, state broadcaster CCTV reported. No deaths have been reported in Nepal or elsewhere.

Chinese authorities have yet to announce how many people are still missing. In Nepal, an official told Reuters the quake destroyed a school building in a village near Mount Everest, which straddles the Nepali-Tibetan border. No one was inside at the time.

German climber Jost Kobusch said he was just above the Everest base camp on the Nepali side when the quake struck. His tent shook violently and he saw several avalanches crash down. He was unscathed.

"I'm climbing Everest in the winter by myself and...looks like basically I'm the only mountaineer there, in the base camp there's nobody," Kobusch told Reuters in a video call.

His expedition organizing company, Satori Adventure, said Kobusch had left the base camp and was descending to Namche Bazaar on Wednesday on the way to Kathmandu.

But in Tibet, the damage was extensive.

An initial survey showed 3,609 homes had been destroyed in the Shigatse region, home to 800,000 people, state media reported late on Tuesday. Over 1,800 emergency rescue personnel and 1,600 soldiers had been deployed.

Footage broadcast on CCTV showed families huddled in rows of blue and green tents quickly erected by soldiers and aid workers in settlements surrounding the epicenter, where hundreds of aftershocks have been recorded.

State media said over 30,000 people affected by the quake had been relocated.

Home to some 60,000 people, Tingri is Tibet's most populous county on China's border with Nepal and is administered from the city of Shigatse, the traditional seat of the Panchen Lama, one of the most important figures in Tibetan Buddhism.

No damage has been reported to Shigatse's Tashilhunpo monastery, state media reported, founded in 1447 by the first Dalai Lama.

The 14th and current Dalai Lama, along with Japanese Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba, Russian President Vladimir Putin and Taiwan President Lai Ching-te, have expressed condolences to the earthquake's victims.

500 AFTERSHOCKS

Southwestern parts of China, Nepal and northern India are often hit by earthquakes caused by the collision of the Indian and Eurasian tectonic plates, which are pushing up an ancient sea that is now the Qinghai-Tibetan plateau.

More than 500 aftershocks with magnitudes of up to 4.4 had followed the quake as of 8 a.m. (0000 GMT) on Wednesday, the China Earthquake Networks Centre said.

Over the past five years, there have been 29 quakes with magnitudes of 3 or above within 200 km (120 miles) of the epicenter of Tuesday's temblor, according to local earthquake bureau data.

Tuesday's quake was the worst in China since a 6.2 magnitude earthquake in 2023 that killed at least 149 people in a remote northwestern region.

In 2008, an 8.0 magnitude earthquake hit Sichuan, claiming the lives of at least 70,000 people, the deadliest quake to hit China since the 1976 Tangshan quake that killed at least 242,000.