At the Wulichong tea garden, south Yunnan’s Mengzi city, tea leaves are kneaded by a grinder which is tied to a rotating water wheel. Because the grinder is indirectly driven by flowing water, local people also call the tea thus made "water-milled tea".

Noting that the international situation is changing rapidly, Xi stressed that it is very necessary for China and Russia, as comprehensive strategic partners of coordination, to strengthen strategic communication and cooperation. China will firmly support Russia's development path that fits its own national conditions.

During the three-day tour that started Monday, he visited villages relocated for poverty relief, pasturing areas, industrial parks and religious venues in Xigaze and Lhasa.

Thanks to the nation's ongoing recovery from the epidemic, China saw FDI growth in the nonfinancial sector jump on a yearly basis by 11.8 percent in April and 7.5 percent in May, justifying global investors' confidence in the market, the Ministry of Commerce said.

China's economy has staged a fast recovery from the COVID-19 impact, with the year-on-year GDP growth likely to turn positive at above 2 percent in the second quarter of the year, economists said.

Qibie is a village embraced by the Hengduan Mountains in northwest Yunnan’s Diqing Tibetan autonomous prefecture. Key scenic spots nearby include the National Park of Black Snub-Nosed Monkey, a thousand-year-old ginkgo tree as well as the Qizhongshen Spring.