BEIJING - Eschewing face-time with foreign leaders at global summits this week, Chinese President Xi Jinping on Thursday visited the homes of villagers in a rural part of northeast China battered by floods.
Inspecting rice crops and damaged homes in Longwangmiao battered by remnants of the super typhoon Doksuri, Xi skipped an Association of Southeast Asian Nations summit in Indonesia this week. Alfred Wu, associate professor at the Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy at the National University of Singapore, said that Xi's speed in visiting disaster-stricken areas in China has usually been much slower than his immediate predecessors Hu Jintao and Jiang Zemin, a possible consequence of Xi's centralisation of power."We know that the floods started in July, but he probably got the information late, and then in August he was busy with Brics, so only now has his agenda cleared.
Instead, some Western leaders such as French President Emmanuel Macron and senior officials including US State Secretary Antony Blinken this year had to come to China to see Xi.