US President Joe Biden arrives in India, on the eve of the G20 summit in New Delhi, September 8, 2023 (AFP/SAUL LOEB)
The reunion of a “dysfunctional” family: this is how the UN boss described the G20 summit on Friday, which will seek compromises on the economy and climate, but which remains deeply divided over the war in Ukraine.
Most heads of state and government arrived in New Delhi on Friday to participate in a two-day meeting, Saturday and Sunday.
It will be held without Russian President Vladimir Putin and without Chinese President Xi Jinping, whose absence raises the question of the relevance of this major diplomatic rally.
The G20 was born in 2008 from the desire to regulate global finance, then devastated, by bringing old industrialized nations and emerging powers around the same table.
– Biden and Modi –
Joe Biden, who intends to occupy the space left vacant by his great rivals, began Friday with a bilateral meeting with Narendra Modi.
The Indian Prime Minister wants to take advantage of this summit of the world’s top 20 economies to assert his place in the world diplomatic hierarchy.
General view of the international center hosting the G20 summit in New Delhi, September 8, 2023 (AFP/TAUSEEF MUSTAFA)
The Hindu nationalist head of government and the democratic president, following a meeting closed to the press but of which New Delhi released images, praised in a joint press release a “solid and lasting partnership”.
In the process, from Washington, the American government announced that the two countries were putting an end to their very last dispute at the World Trade Organization (WTO), which concerned the importation of American agricultural products into India.
Washington and New Delhi had already settled several other trade disputes in June, during Mr. Modi’s state visit to the White House.
And the latter said on Friday that he was “impatient” to receive Mr. Biden again next year for a meeting of the Quad (Japan, Australia, India, United States), this diplomatic format that Washington has relaunched to show China.
The absence of the Chinese and Russian leaders “is a disappointment for India,” commented Kurt Campbell, an adviser to Joe Biden, but “for our Indian interlocutors, it is both gratifying and reassuring that the United States are there”.
The Americans intend to exert all their weight at a time when the global family is showing itself to be “dysfunctional”, as deplored by the Secretary General of the United Nations, Antonio Guterres.
“Divisions are growing, tensions are exploding and trust is eroding – which, taken together, raises the specter of fragmentation and, ultimately, confrontation,” he said.
– Towards a G21? –
Kurt Campbell, on the American side, however assured that the negotiations had progressed on the climate, and on the wording which would appear on the subject in the final communiqué of the meeting.
Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov arrives in New Delhi on the eve of the G20 summit in India, September 8, 2023 (PIB/AFP/-)
On Ukraine, on the other hand, he suggested that disagreements remained, during an exchange with the press: “the United States and its allies remain focused, determined and resolute on what concerns Ukraine, and we “We said this quite clearly to all our interlocutors.”
India did not join the sanctions against Moscow after the invasion. And other emerging countries refuse to align with the West.
The United States is aware of this, and in any case their priority in New Delhi is economic: boosting the financing capacities of the World Bank in particular, to offer an alternative to the gigantic Chinese investment plans, the “New Silk Roads”. .”
Russia is represented by its head of diplomacy Sergei Lavrov, who has already set the tone in a press release: “We are working closely with all G20 countries in order to (…) fight against attempts to explain humanitarian problems and economic in the world only by + the conflict in Ukraine +”.
China sends Prime Minister Li Qiang.
On Thursday, Mr Modi reiterated his desire to expand the bloc into the G21 with “the inclusion of the African Union as a permanent member”. A project which, which is rare in the G20, seems to have more or less consensus.
© 2023 AFP
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