XI JINPING AND VALENTINA MATVIYENKO MET IN BEIJING.

According to the Speaker of the Federation Council, Russian-Chinese co-operation is in the interests of both countries and is gaining increasing public and popular support. Matviyenko also conveyed to the Chinese President an oral message from Vladimir Putin, with whom she had spoken before her departure.

After the meeting, she shared her impressions with the media. "I am hugely impressed after meeting with President Xi Jinping of the People's Republic of China. A very wise, very confident, very educated, independent leader for whom upholding China's national interests is the main goal of his life, and the second great march for the revitalization of the Chinese nation is a strategic goal for him," she said in a commentary for Chinese television.