Chinese leader Xi Jinping lavished praise on Iran Monday, as Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi began his three-day visit to China. The meeting in Beijing comes as both Iran and China face increasingly strained ties with Western governments and is the first state visit by an Iranian president to China in more than 20 years.

China, Iran hail cooperation amid tensions with West
"In the face of the current complex changes in the world, times, and history, China and Iran have supported each other (and) worked together in solidarity and cooperation," Xi said in remarks cited by Chinese state-run news outlet CCTV. According to Iran's state-owned Islamic Republic News Agency, Raisi described "Iran and China as two friends in hard times." Raisi's three-day visit to China comes as both countries have been condemned and sanctioned by the West on various issues. Western countries such as the US and Germany, for example, have criticized Iran's nuclear ambitions and its crackdown on anti-government protesters, with Washington and Berlin also critical of China's drills near Taiwan and its treatment of the Muslim Uyghur minority in Xinjiang. In addition, Iran and China have been criticized by the West for not condemning Russia's war on Ukraine. Russia has even used Iranian drones to carry out attacks on Ukrainian cities, with the Iranian government rejecting it supplied the weapons.