China's Xi Jinping travels to Central Asia in first trip abroad since pandemic

The big picture: Xi on Wednesday landed in Kazakhstan, a country that is strongly connected to China through China's Belt and Road Initiative.

• Xi will next head to Uzbekistan for a regional summit of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization, where he will also meet with Russian President Vladimir Putin on Thursday — their first in-person meeting since the start of Russia's invasion of Ukraine, CNN reported.
• The trip also follows the release of a UN report last month that detailed the Chinese government's "serious human rights violations" against Uyghurs and other ethnic minorities in Xinjiang, a region of China that borders Kazakhstan.