Multiple people walked out of a summit in Beijing shortly before Russia's President Vladimir Putin delivered a speech to the gathering, which he attended with his Chinese counterpart Xi Jinping.
European delegates including Jean-Pierre Raffarin, former prime minister of France, walked out of the room just before Putin starting speaking on Wednesday, Reuters reported.
Putin arrived in Beijing on Tuesday to visit Xi, his closest major ally, and to address the third summit of the Belt and Road Initative, the Chinese leader's signature project to bolster its influence overseas and develop infrastructure and energy routes between Asia, Europe and Africa.
It is the Russian president's second known trip abroad since the International Criminal Court (ICC) issued an arrest warrant against him in March. Putin's last visit to Beijing was in 2022, weeks before he launched the full-scale invasion of Ukraine.
The ICC in the Hague has accused Putin of the illegal deportation of children from Ukraine to Russia. China is one of the few places where he cannot be arrested, since Beijing is not an ICC state. ICC states are required to arrest Putin if he steps foot on their territory.
Newsweek has contacted Russia's Foreign Ministry via email for comment.
In the Russian president's speech at the forum, he praised Xi for the successes of the Belt and Road Initiative, saying: "Our Chinese friends did it."
China's success was "really important for us," he added.
"Russia and China, like most countries of the world, share the desire for equal, mutually beneficial co-operation in order to achieve universal sustainable and long-term economic progress and social well-being, while respecting the diversity of civilization and the right of each state to its own development model."
Putin and Xi are expected to hold in-depth talks on Wednesday.
In an interview with Chinese state media on Monday, Putin said Xi "calls me his friend, and I call him my friend."
The Russian president added that there is a saying, "Tell me who your friend is, and I will tell you who you are." He went on: "Therefore, if I now praise Chairman Xi Jinping, I will feel somehow uncomfortable—it's like I'm praising myself. So I'll try to be objective."
Putin described his Chinese counterpart as "one of the recognized world leaders" who does not "make a momentary decision based on some current situation, he assesses the situation, analyzes and looks into the future."
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Newsweek is committed to challenging conventional wisdom and finding connections in the search for common ground.
About the writer
Isabel van Brugen is a Newsweek Reporter based in Kuala Lumpur. Her focus is reporting on the Russia-Ukraine war. Isabel ... Read more
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