Putin highlights development of Russia-China relations during meeting with Xi Jinping

Russian President Vladimir Putin met with Chinese President Xi Jinping on the sidelines of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) summit, TASS reported.

“Cooperation between Russia and China is developing successfully in all areas,” Putin said during the meeting.

During the talks, the Russian President stressed that Moscow was ready to work with Beijing to make the visa-free regime between the two countries permanent if China considered it beneficial.

He noted that tourist flows between the two countries had increased by 43% in the first half of the year thanks to the visa-free regime.

On the Russian side, the meeting was attended by Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov, Deputy Prime Minister Alexey Overchuk, Deputy Chief of Staff of the Presidential Executive Office Maxim Oreshkin, presidential press secretary Dmitry Peskov and others.

This is the second in-person meeting between the two leaders in 2026. In May, the Russian President paid a two-day official visit to China.

On December 1, 2025, the Russian President signed a decree allowing Chinese citizens to travel to Russia without a visa until September 14, 2026, on the basis of reciprocity. China, for its part, had earlier introduced a similar visa-free regime for Russian citizens. The two sides subsequently extended visa-free entry for each other until the end of 2027.

The meeting with the Chinese President was the first in a series of bilateral talks by the Russian President at the SCO summit. Putin will later meet with the leaders of Armenia, Kyrgyzstan, Kazakhstan, Iran, India, Tajikistan, Türkiye and Mongolia.

The official events of the SCO summit begin on September 1.