EXPLAINER: Why is Xi Jinping’s Central Asia trip important?

FILE - China's President Xi Jinping greets the media prior to a meeting of leaders of the BRICS emerging economies at the Itamaraty palace in Brasilia, Brazil, on Nov. 14, 2019. Xi is expected to meet his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin during a visit to the neighboring Central Asian nations of Uzbekistan and Kazakhstan later in September 2022, in what would be his first overseas visits since the start of the COVID-19 outbreak in late 2019. (AP Photo/Pavel Golovkin, Pool, File)