Two days is all Chinese leader Xi Jinping has spent outside his country this year, as mounting domestic problems from a faltering economy to rare political scandals demand his attention at home.
Xi’s border hop to visit Russian President Vladimir Putin in March has been his sole trip abroad, representing the shortest amount of time he’s spent overseas in the first half of a year since taking power, excluding the pandemic.
That’s a major shift from his pre-COVID schedule, when Xi traveled more often and for longer than his U.S. counterpart. The Chinese leader made an average of 14 overseas trips annually between 2013 and 2019, according to a Bloomberg News analysis of government readouts of Xi’s diplomatic meetings.