Chinese President Xi Jinping returned to Beijing on Saturday afternoon after a four-day state visit to Kazakhstan for the 17th meeting of the Council of Heads of State of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO).
At the invitation of his Kazakh counterpart Nursultan Nazarbayev, Xi visited Kazakhstan starting on Wednesday.
During talks among regional leaders, the organization agreed to increase joint efforts to combat terrorism and accepted India and Pakistan as its full members, in its first expansion since its founding in 2001, making it the world's most populous regional cooperative organization and the largest by area.
Xi also attended the opening ceremony of the 2017 Expo in Kazakh capital Astana.
Across the four days, Xi also had talks with the presidents of Russia, Turkmenistan and Afghanistan, as well as Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Spain's King Felipe VI.
Xi proposed the Belt and Road Initiative in 2013 in Kazakhstan, with the aim of building a trade and infrastructure network connecting Asia with Europe and Africa along the ancient trade routes.
Four years later, when Xi returned to Astana, the initiative has developed from a proposal to actions, and from a concept to practice, generating business opportunities, new jobs and hopes for countries and peoples involved.
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