Chinese leader Xi Jinping has hit the road this September for an unusual series of diplomatic trips spanning four countries, three state visits, two multilateral summits and one widely anticipated meeting with President Donald Trump.
A key part of his agenda: A pitch for China as a stable partner, especially for developing countries, during a period of what Beijing has portrayed as U.S.-driven geopolitical uncertainty.
The visits — to Kyrgyzstan, Egypt, India and the United States — are a collective rarity for the Chinese leader, who has sharply limited his international travel since the coronavirus pandemic. Between 2021 and 2025, U.S. presidents logged 51 visits to other countries, compared to just 25 for Xi.
Other world leaders have been more than willing to visit Xi in China, allowing him the luxury of holding court at home. But experts say he now sees openings abroad.
“Xi sees an opportunity to show that China has friends and options around the world at exactly the time when Washington is pushing away and alienating many of its partners,” said Julian Gewirtz, who served as a China director on the National Security Council under the Biden administration.
The Chinese leader began with a summit of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) — a 10-country economic and security bloc often described as a counterbalance to United States influence — in Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan, where he met Russian President Vladimir Putin and Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian, among others.
Xi on Wednesday wrapped a state visit in Cairo and is set to travel to New Delhi mid-month for a summit of the BRICS nations. In late September, the Chinese leader plans to visit Washington, where Trump is set to host him at the White House for a state dinner. The pair last met in Beijing in May.
The “selective” nature of the trips leading into Xi’s visit to Washington is no coincidence, said Craig Singleton, the senior director of the China Program at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, a hawkish Washington think tank.
The statecraft shows “Xi can stand beside Putin, he can court the Global South and still prepare for a summit with Trump,” Singleton said. “China wants Washington to see that it has diplomatic depth and strategic options.”
Beijing’s outreach comes as many developing countries are scrambling to react to a geopolitical or economic crises, some precipitated by the Trump administration, including the war in Iran and Iran’s closure of the Strait of Hormuz, the seizure of Venezuela’s leader, and trade wars.
“If there’s an overall message, it’s that China will be a reliable partner and that Chinese growth benefits the world,” said Henrietta Levin, senior fellow for the Freeman Chair in China Studies at the Washington-based Center for Strategic and International Studies. “We’ll see a very heavy focus on Chinese leadership of the Global South.”
China’s relationship with Kyrgyzstan — involving trade, renewable energy investments and construction of a railway linking the two countries — offers “some very concrete examples” of how Beijing seeks to work with partner nations, said Zichen Wang, deputy secretary general at the Center for China and Globalization, a think tank in Beijing.
“China wants its ideas on global governance to be persuasive internationally,” Wang added. “The SCO is one of the first places where people can look for evidence on how they work in practice.”
In other cases, Beijing seems intent on making inroads where Washington once held sway. Xi arrived in Egypt, one of the largest recipients of U.S. military aid, just as joint fighter jet exercises between China and Egypt concluded — a new practice begun only last year.
Xi’s trip to Cairo also came shortly after the Treasury Department imposed sanctions on a branch of a major Egyptian bank, part of a campaign of wide-ranging secondary sanctions against Iran.
The U.S. sanctions give Xi “a terrific opportunity, unusually well-timed, to stand alongside Egypt and cast that financial pressure as grounds for solidarity,” Gewirtz said.
One notable stop missing from Xi’s schedule, however, is the United Nations General Assembly in New York. The Chinese leader reportedly declined to attend the annual gathering of world leaders, even though he will already be in Washington at that time.
Xi’s decision to forgo the General Assembly and instead meet with Trump “suggests a preference for forums where Beijing is going to control more of this choreography,” Singleton said. “Xi wants diplomacy on terms where China can shape the agenda.”
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