With Xi Jinping absent, G20 meeting could well be Modi’s time to shine
- The Indian prime minister could use the Group of 20 leaders meeting in New Delhi as an opportunity to burnish his standing as a leading voice of the Global South
- Experts say India’s G20 agenda includes many Global South priorities, from climate finance to multilateral development bank reforms to food insecurity
President Xi Jinping’s absence at the G20 summit this weekend in New Delhi may prove a disadvantage for China in its competition with India as the leading voice of developing countries across Asia, Africa and South America.
With its growing diplomatic and economic influence on the global stage amid heightened geopolitical tensions between Washington and Beijing, experts said, New Delhi regards the summit as its moment to act as a bridge between the West and the Global South – as Xi has chosen to skip the event.
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Chinese President Xi Jinping to skip G20 summit in New Delhi, India
According to Manjari Chaterjee Miller of the Council on Foreign Relations, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi perceives the G20 presidency as a “big opportunity to showcase” India’s credentials – and “of course China has been watching this”.
She said that as a “rising power over the last few years”, New Delhi has been aggressively courted by Western countries – a member of the Global South with “very strong partnerships with the West”.
China claims a superpower competition with the US, but Miller noted that it continues to call itself a developing country, raising the question of Global South leadership.
And, she said, Xi does not want to validate Modi’s bigger stage to speak for the developing world. “You know, ‘Yes, we’re not going to come to this. We’re not going to send President Xi to attend the summit, which has been clearly so important to you for the whole year,’” she added.