China will send its prime minister, Li Qiang, to the G-20 summit in New Delhi next weekend, instead of its president, Xi Jinping, the Foreign Ministry announced Monday. The absence of the Chinese president, the first since he came to power (with the exception of meetings held during the Covid-19 pandemic), is seen as a blow to India's rotating presidency and a slight to the forum that brings together the largest economies on the planet, that is, 19 countries and the European Union. It also ruins the possibility of a meeting with the US president, Joe Biden, with whom he saw himself on the sidelines of the last meeting in Bali, last November.
The Asian giant's leader's gesture comes after months in which the bloc has not issued a joint statement because it is deeply divided over the language to use for Russia's invasion of Ukraine. As China opposes blaming Moscow for the war, Western countries including the United States, France and Canada have called for strong condemnation as a necessary condition for signing the document. Western leaders hoped that the G20 summit would be an opportunity for India and China to get tougher on Russian President Vladimir Putin.
Xi's sit-in - which is added to the absence of his Russian counterpart, who has an arrest warrant issued by the International Criminal Court against him for alleged war crimes in Ukraine (his foreign minister will go) - takes place two weeks after the BRICS summit, a group that includes Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa, which the Chinese leader did attend. At the meeting of the club of the main emerging economies, the green light was given to the upcoming accession of six new countries -Argentina, Ethiopia, Iran, Saudi Arabia, Egypt and the United Arab Emirates-. The economic heavyweight of the bloc, Beijing, was favorable to this expansion, which was described as "historic" by Xi Jinping, and sees the group as a counterweight to American and Western domination.
"Xi's skipping the Western-dominated G20 club right after attending the BRICS summit may be a visual illustration of Xi's 'East is rising and the West is falling' narrative." as well as a show of solidarity with Russian President Putin," Australian National University political scientist Wen Ti Sung told Reuters.
None of this was interpreted in the words offered today by the spokesman for the Chinese Foreign Ministry, Mao Ning: "We are willing to work with all parties to jointly promote the success of the G20 summit and actively contribute to promoting global economic recovery. stable and sustainable development," it said in a statement.
Despite the good intentions, analysts point out that while Xi Jinping viewed the first G-20 heads of state summits, launched after the 2008 global financial crisis, as an opportunity to increase his influence, his efforts have been hampered by the growing rivalry with the United States and its allies, such as Japan, South Korea, Germany and other European countries. “Many of the countries that are members of the G20 have hardened their positions on China. It is a difficult audience for Xi,” the director of the think tank, Carnegie China, Paul Haenle, told the Financial Times.
Xi's absence from the G-20 meeting could also be read as disregarding the host country. India has one of the fastest growing major economies while China's slows down. Furthermore, ties between the two countries have been troubled for more than three years after soldiers from both sides clashed on their disputed Himalayan border in June 2020, resulting in 24 deaths.
Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi, for his part, seeks to mediate to reach consensus and, from his self-declared position as leader of the Global South, stand as a leader of power between his historic ally, Moscow, and his emerging ally, Washington. Hence Modi tries to downplay the Ukraine conflict in order to prevent the issue from breaking an agreement within the bloc.
"India itself is not willing to use the word 'war' in the final G-20 communiqué" because of its good relations with Russia, as it continues to buy cheap Russian oil and relies on its arms industry, the senior member explained. of the Council on Foreign Relations, Manjari Chatterjee Miller, to EFE. Focusing on the concerns of the developing world instead of on the war "maybe it can be a mechanism by which some kind of consensus can be generated. And I think that would be the goal at the G-20 summit," the president said. head of the Observer Research Foundation's Strategic Studies Program, Harsh V. Pant, to the same agency.
The theme of the summit in New Delhi is derived from the Sanskrit phrase "Vasudhaiva Kutumbakam," which translates to "The world is one family." A family without Xi or Putin.
