Chinese President Xi Jinping will meet Russia’s Vladimir Putin in Central Asia. This is the first time Xi Jinping will leave China in more than two years, accordint to Reuters.

The Chinese President is due to pay a state visit to Kazakhstan on Wednesday and will then meet his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin at the Shanghai Cooperation Organization summit, in Samarkand, Uzbekistan.

The trip is the first abroad since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic and shows how confident Xi Jinping is about his grip on power in China.