BEIJING : The U.S., Britain and a handful of others aren’t sending dignitaries to the Beijing Winter Games as part of a diplomatic boycott, but the Chinese capital is still attracting an array of world leaders for Friday’s opening ceremony.
President Vladimir Putin is meeting Chinese counterpart Xi Jinping ahead of the opening ceremony, underscoring closer ties between Beijing and Moscow as they both face Western criticism and pressure.
Egypt’s President Abdel Fattah el-Sissi and Serbia’s Aleksandar Vucic have growing frictions with the West over their authoritarian policies and human rights records.
Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, the kingdom’s de facto leader, is appearing at the Winter Games as investors and some governments signal warming relations after the 2018 killing of journalist Jamal Khashoggi.
The leaders of all five former Soviet republics in Central Asia are heading to Beijing, highlighting the region’s increasingly close ties with China. Kyrgyzstan’s President Sadyr Zhaparov.
Argentina is set to become the first major Latin American country to join China’s Belt and Road Initiative. President Alberto Fernández is also expected to discuss China’s help building Argentina’s first nuclear power plant since 1981. President Guillermo Lasso is seeking to renegotiate Ecuador’s $4.6 billion debt with China.
Secretary-General Antonio Guterres and WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus will attend. The IOC is a close partner of the U.N., Guterres said, and the Olympics bring together people with a message of solidarity and peace.
