When Xi Jinping met Santa: The story behind this resurfaced photo

A photo of the Chinese president posing with Santa, the mascot for Christmas, has resurfaced online and is raising eyebrows.

Chinese president Xi Jinping posed with Santa Claus for a photograph in northern Lapland, a region in Finland that is described as the North Pole. Source: YouTube / CGTN

Key points

• Chinese president Xi Jinping took a light-hearted photo with Santa Claus more than a decade ago.
• An academic posted the photo online, saying it was "the craziest" thing she learnt during a conference in Finland.
• Mr Xi travelled to Finland to visit the logging industry, taking a detour to Santa's residence - the North Pole.

A seemingly bizarre photograph of Chinese President Xi Jinping sitting with Santa Claus has resurfaced online.

Washington-based academic Emma Ashford posted the photo of Mr Xi during a 2010 trip to Finland while at a foreign policy conference on Wednesday.

Ms Ashford said on Twitter the winter war or Cold War arms control wasn't the "craziest" thing conference members had learned on the trip.

"It was the unexpected discovery that Xi Jinping visited Lapland in 2010 and had his picture taken with Santa," she said.

The tweet has garnered more than 3,000 likes, with scores of people surprised at the hardline Chinese president's light-hearted meet-and-greet with Father Christmas.

"We thought it was photoshopped, but no. It’s real!," Ms Ashford wrote.

As vice president, Mr Xi travelled to Finland in 2010 to visit the growing logging industry in the country.

With hard work, too, comes downtime. He later stopped by the local town of Rovaniemi in Finland's district of Lapland - otherwise known as the North Pole, or Santa's "official residence".

The coordinator of the Santa Claus village, Antti Nikander, said Mr Xi couldn't stop smiling upon his meeting with Santa, according to the Financial Times.

Three years after the photo was taken, which has since been framed and hung in Santa Claus village, Mr Xi rose to become the most powerful man in China.

China under Chinese Communist Party rule is an officially atheist country.

While the country recognises religions, the way people practise their faith is tightly regulated around the country - including the outward display of Christmas decorations and festivities.

Several local governments in China have worked to quell the public excitement around Christmas. Most notable is Langfang in the country's north, where any display of Christmas celebration was banned in 2018.

That includes any image of Santa.