Prabowo arrived in Beijing on Sunday, making his first overseas visit after he secured a victory in the February election.
Both countries have entered a new stage in their bilateral relations, Xi was quoted by national broadcaster CCTV as telling Prabowo.
"China views the bilateral relations from a strategic and long-term perspective," said Xi, adding that Beijing is ready to deepen all-round cooperation with Jakarta.
"The main aim of this visit is to strengthen bilateral relations between Indonesia and China and increase cooperation in the defense sector," defense ministry spokesperson Edwin Adrian Sumantha told Nikkei Asia on Monday morning. During his three-day visit to China, Prabowo also plans to meet Premier Li Qiang and Defense Minister Dong Jun, according to the ministry.
Beijing first announced the plan for the visit on Friday, with Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Hua Chunying mentioning that the trip is being made at Xi's invitation.
The visit is considered rare as Beijing usually welcomes foreign dignitaries after they are inaugurated. For example, Xi spoke over the telephone to President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. after the latter won the presidential election in May 2022 but did not extend an invitation to visit Beijing until January 2023.
The difference in treatment reflects Beijing's urgency to win over Jakarta amid rising tensions in the South China Sea with the Philippines. After the election, the Chinese Ambassador to Indonesia Lu Kang was among the first to congratulate Prabowo, and he visited the defense minister's residence to extend his congratulations.
As the superpowers U.S. and China both ratchet up tensions and vie for more influence in Southeast Asia, Beijing had appealed to Prabowo to make an early visit. Beijing hopes Prabowo will maintain incumbent President Joko "Jokowi" Widodo's "non-align" policy without siding with any major power, the Chinese Communist Party-linked Global Times wrote in a commentary on Sunday.
Prabowo's meeting with Xi also comes ahead of the first trilateral summit in Washington to be hosted by U.S. President Joe Biden that will involve Marcos and Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida. Beijing would likely hope to stress its cordial cooperation with Southeast Asia's largest economy.
For many countries, Indonesia is becoming more important recently with the country's growing international presence, especially after chairing the Group of 20 summit in 2022 and ASEAN the following year. The country, which has more than 270 million people, is also the world's largest producer of nickel, a key material for batteries used in electric vehicles.
For Indonesia, China has emerged as its largest trading and investment partner of the past few years, boosted by billions of dollars in investment for a wide range of projects from the nickel-processing sector to a high-speed railway connecting Jakarta and Bandung.
During the election campaigns, Prabowo appealed himself as the successor to popular incumbent president Widodo, who enhanced relations with Beijing particularly to seek economic gains with his infrastructure agenda and China's investment to relocate the capital from Jakarta to Nusantara, a new city being built on the island of Borneo.
Analysts see Prabowo's choice of Beijing as his first overseas visit as president-elect as Indonesia's continued approach to woo Chinese investment.
"Some economic cooperation projects such as the new capital, EV and renewable energy to the high speed train might be brought up," said Dandy Rafitrandi, a researcher at the Jakarta-based Center for Strategic and International Studies, in comments to Nikkei Asia. "Prabowo and his team might benefit from early communication from the Chinese government regarding their plans in the next five years, which will also rely on foreign investment, especially from China."
After China, Prabowo plans to visit Japan from Tuesday, where he is expected to meet government officials, including Prime Minister Fumio Kishida, on Wednesday.
"We hope that this visit to Japan will provide an opportunity to further strengthen bilateral cooperation in a wide range of areas and to form closer ties in regional and international affairs," Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshimasa Hayashi told reporters.
Japan is Indonesia's second-largest trading partner, and Prabowo is seen as seeking to strike a diplomatic balance that does not lean too much toward China.
Additional reporting by Ismi Damayanti.