Chinese President Xi Jinping is on his first trip to Europe in five years, which is likely to be dominated by Russia’s war in Ukraine as well as economic strains between Beijing and Brussels.

The first stop will be France, with Xi due to hold talks in Paris on May 6 with French President Emmanuel Macron and European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, before travelling south to the Pyrenees.

After that, he will travel to Serbia and Hungary, two countries that have maintained close ties with Russia despite its full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022.

But the trip also comes amid a deteriorating global security climate, with the war in Ukraine now into its third year and at least 34,683 Palestinians killed in Israel’s ongoing bombardment of Gaza.