Chinese President Xi Jinping and Russian President Vladimir Putin sparked global attention this week after a conversation between the two leaders touched on organ transplants and human immortality.
The exchange, captured by state broadcaster CCTV, occurred as Xi walked alongside Putin and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un during Beijing’s massive military parade at Tiananmen Square. The historic gathering was widely viewed as a symbolic challenge to U.S. President Donald Trump.
In the footage, Xi remarked in Mandarin, “These days… 70 years old,” before quoting a Tang dynasty poem through his translator: “In the past, it used to be rare for someone to be older than 70, and these days they say that at 70 one’s still a child.”
Putin responded, according to the translator, by highlighting advances in science and medicine. “With the development of biotechnology, human organs can be continuously transplanted, people could get younger as they grow older, and may even become immortal,” he was quoted as saying.
Xi later added, “Predictions are, in this century, it may be… possible to live to 150 years old.”
The Russian leader confirmed the conversation during a press briefing, noting that modern health and surgical innovations offer “hope that active life will continue not as it does today.”
Both leaders, who are 72, remain firmly in power. While Xi’s predecessors, Jiang Zemin and Hu Jintao, stepped down after a decade, Xi abolished presidential term limits in 2018 and secured a third term in 2023.
