ROME – An Italian newspaper reported Tuesday morning that Pope Francis’s personal envoy for the conflict in Ukraine, Cardinal Matteo Zuppi, will depart today for Beijing, where he is expected to meet Premier Li Qiang, considered China’s second most important official after President Xi Jinping.
Zuppi’s trip to Beijing has been widely anticipated, coming after similar missions to Kyiv, Moscow and Washington, D.C., in June and July. According to the report in the widely read Italian newspaper La Repubblica, the trip has been prepared in consultation with both the Italian government and Washington.
