August 22, 2022: -Chinese and Russian authorities Xi Jinping and Vladimir Putin are attending November’s G-20 summit on the resort island of Bali, an adviser to the Indonesian president stated.

Andi Widjajanto, former cabinet secretary and unofficial adviser to President Joko Widodo, told Reuters that Xi and Putin would join the forum.

“Jokowi said that Xi and Putin are both planning to attend in Bali,” Widjajanto, heading the National Resilience Institute, told Reuters.

On Thursday, Jokowi told Bloomberg News that both leaders had given him their assurances.

A Kremlin spokesperson refused to comment to Bloomberg, but another official acquainted with the condition told the news agency Putin is looking to attend the meeting in person.

The trip would be significant given it would be Xi’s first time outside China since January 2020, when he called Myanmar.

China maintains a zero-Covid policy that has closed its borders to international travel.

Since then, Xi made his trip outside of mainland China on June 30, visiting Hong Kong to mark the 25th anniversary of the territory’s handover from British control.

Xi is widely expected to secure a precedent-breaking third leadership term in a once-in-five-year congress of the ruling Communist Party this autumn, most likely before he heads to Bali for the mid-November G-20 meeting.

The party congress has not announced dates, but the previous one took place in November.

Chinese officials are also reportedly making plans for a November meeting in Southeast Asia between Xi and U.S. President Joe Biden, who is expected to attend the G-20 summit in Bali, according to a report in the Wall Street Journal.

As head of the G-20 this year, Indonesia has faced pressure from Western countries to withdraw its invitation to Putin over his country’s invasion of Ukraine, which his administration calls a “special military operation.”

Indonesia has also invited Ukrainian leader Volodymyr Zelensky to attend the Bali summit.