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China’s president Xi Jinping is not planning to attend the G20 summit in New Delhi next weekend, officials said, in a blow to a forum of leading nations already beset by deep divisions.
Xi’s move to skip a gathering of G20 leaders for the first time comes after he dominated last week’s Brics summit, where he oversaw plans to expand the developing nations club that Beijing sees as a rival to US-led western groupings.
China plans to instead send Premier Li Qiang to attend the G20 summit in the Indian capital on September 9-10, according to three western officials who spoke on condition of anonymity.
Xi’s absence is likely to be seen as a setback for the government of Prime Minister Narendra Modi, which has been using its occupancy of the rotating G20 presidency as a showcase for India’s expanding economy and growing geopolitical clout.
Xi’s non-attendance will also end hopes of a possible meeting with US president Joe Biden at the event. The two leaders last met on the sidelines of the last G20 summit in Bali last November.
Tensions between India and China remain high, particularly over disputes on their border in the Himalayas. An Indian government spokesman declined to comment. China’s foreign ministry did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
The G20 is beset by myriad disagreements between its western members and some developing nations including China and Russia, particularly over the war in Ukraine and climate change. Diplomats have played down expectations of major breakthroughs at the summit.
Xi’s decision to skip the event would be a blow to its importance, western officials said. The Chinese leader travelled to South Africa for the Brics summit, where he said its planned expansion from five to 11 members “meets the expectations of the international community, and serves the common interests of emerging markets and developing countries”.
Xi had attended all in-person G20 summit gatherings since taking office as president in 2013, seeing it as China’s primary opportunity to assert its geopolitical primacy in the global competition against the US, said Zhang Baohui, professor at Lingnan University in Hong Kong.
“He never missed a G20 meeting before because it’s a vital occasion for China to try to shape the global narrative. G20 offers China that platform to outcompete the American messages,” Zhang said, adding that Li’s impact on the event would not be the same.
India and China have been at loggerheads for more than three years over their long-running border dispute, which flared into violence in which at least 24 people died in and around the Galwan Valley in eastern Ladakh in 2020.
New Delhi has said it will not restore normal relations with Beijing until the face-off at the border is resolved.
Western diplomats and Indian analysts say China’s officials have been difficult negotiators in working groups leading up to the summit on areas ranging from health to climate change.
Some Indians have speculated Beijing might be seeking to undermine the forum and its concluding summit at a time when India’s economic and demographic clout is growing and Modi is set to take centre-stage.
“China doesn’t want India to have a successful G20 — it’s that simple,” said Indrani Bagchi, chief executive of the Ananta Aspen Centre, an Indian think-tank. “It took India a while to realise that its rise would be opposed tooth and nail by Beijing.”
Zhang said China would take care to explain to India why Xi was unable to participate to ensure that there was no diplomatic incident. Xi and Modi met at the Brics summit in South Africa, so they have had a recent chance to talk about their mutual border dispute, Zhang added.
Russian president Vladimir Putin also has no plans to attend the G20 talks, the Kremlin said last week. Putin missed the Bali summit too.
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