THE Chinese President Xi Jinping will visit Serbia on the 25th anniversary of the bloody NATO air bombing of the Chinese embassy in Belgrade.

The visit will be part of Mr Xi’s European tour, which is also expected to include stops in France and Hungary, Chinese diplomatic spokeswoman Hua Chunying said in Beijing on Monday.

Serbia’s state-run Tanjug news agency reported that the Chinese president will arrive in Belgrade at the invitation of his counterpart Aleksandar Vucic on May 7, exactly 25 years after the bombing that killed three Chinese journalists and angered Beijing.

NATO had described the bombing as an accident.

Although Serbia has been negotiating its accession to the EU since 2014, it maintains close relations with the People’s Republic. Mr Vucic visited Beijing in October.

The Balkan country is part of the One Belt, One Road Initiative — the so-called new silk roads. China has made investments that have notably enabled the construction of a high-speed rail link between Belgrade and Budapest, among others.

President Xi’s visit to Serbia will follow his two-day stay in France, where he last visited in March 2019 at the invitation of his counterpart Emmanuel Macron.

The Elysee said the two leaders’ talks would focus on the war in Ukraine, developments in the Middle East, economic cooperation and climate change.

The Chinese head of state will see his French counterpart a few weeks after German Chancellor Olaf Scholz visits China in the middle of this month.

Mr Xi will conclude his tour of the Old Continent in Hungary, one of the few EU member states also included in China’s New Silk Roads. Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán recently signed deals with Chinese companies. BYD, China’s largest electric car maker, plans to build a factory in Hungary. A unit of Chinese battery giant CATL is also expected to be located in the Eastern European country.