"The world is one family", reads the Sanskrit motto of the G-20 summit. "A dysfunctional family," António Guterres, UN Secretary General, qualified as soon as he arrived in India.
New Delhi, which was conceived as an imperial capital, is in its element this weekend, as host to a large score of heads of state and government. This landing of power (80% of the world's GDP), however, has returned millions of residents to the helplessness of confinement, for security reasons.
Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi had a “productive” conversation yesterday at his residence with US President Joe Biden, who reportedly promised support for incorporating India as a permanent member of the UN Security Council.
The landing of Biden, his British counterpart, Rishi Sunak, the Japanese Fumio Kishida or the French Emmanuel Macron, among others, almost concealed high-profile absences such as Vladimir Putin and Xi Jinping.
Today they will meet in a building inaugurated last month for the occasion, presided over by a golden Siva. This kilometer zero of the Indian State is also, from this year and forever, that of the most populous nation in the world and – for the moment – its fifth economy.
Spain, like the Netherlands, has been a permanent guest since the first edition, but Pedro Sánchez has not been able to take the plane after testing positive for covid. To the political message of the faults of Xi and Putin we must add that of the Mexican López Obrador, who yesterday preferred to meet with his counterpart Gustavo Petro, in Colombia, before continuing his trip to Chile to celebrate Allende on the 50th anniversary of the coup of Pinochet.
Instead, the Argentine Alberto Fernández was expected. And the one who could not fail was Lula either, since Brazil will pick up India's baton in the G-20 presidency in November.
It should be noted that India, which is going all out as host of the G-20, opted two months ago to hold the Shanghai Cooperation Organization summit by videoconference.
The G-20 forum gained prominence after the 2008 crises, to discuss and address global problems that go beyond the G-7 framework. A spirit of cooperation now in crisis due to the war in Ukraine and its consequences for food and energy security.
In any case, India has hosted, throughout the year, more than a dozen ministerial summits with the nineteen member countries (the EU is the twentieth) and guests, among which India has included Egypt, Bangladesh, Oman and Singapore.
The sherpa of this edition, Amitabh Kant, highlights the sectoral meetings in sixty cities, a record number that reflects “our diversity and federal character.” This is the most attractive aspect of India's model, which aspires to project itself among developing countries, despite not having China's checkbook.
The Indian organization is especially proud of “having given a voice to the Global South,” bringing together a record number of 125 developing countries.
The legacy of this summit could be the inclusion of the African Union as a permanent member, alongside the EU.
Kant – who led the Make in India consortium – has also regretted that only 12 of the 169 Sustainable Development Goals are on track to be met. And the measures to be adopted to stop global warming are once again the subject of dispute.
Meanwhile, the final declaration would have already been agreed upon, except for the phrases relating to the invasion of Ukraine. Condemnation of Russian aggression is an article of faith for the Western bloc. But others, such as India and Turkey, cultivate equidistance and increase their imports of Russian hydrocarbons. Something that the previous Indian Prime Minister, Manmohan Singh, defended as legitimate yesterday in an interview.
