2023-09-08 07:40:00
(CNN) — When the world’s most powerful leaders come to New Delhi this weekend to address the multiple crises facing the planet, there will be one notable absence: that of Chinese leader Xi Jinping, who has never missed a G20 summit since He took power in 2012.
As is often the case with Beijing’s opaque decision-making, no explanation was given over Xi’s apparent decision to skip an important global meeting that China has given high priority to in the past. Premier Li Qiang, the country’s second leader, is expected to attend in Xi’s place.
Beijing’s reluctance has sparked a wide range of speculation and interpretations, from possible health problems for Xi and internal problems at home to a snub to host country India, whose relations with China have deteriorated over a border dispute.
However, from the point of view of the rivalry between China and the United States, analysts say that Xi’s foreseeable absence from the G20 could also be a sign of his disillusionment with the current system of global governance and with the structures that he considers too much. dominated by American influence.
Instead, Xi may be prioritizing multilateral forums that fit China’s own vision of how the world should be governed, such as the recently concluded BRICS summit and the upcoming Belt and Road Forum.
“There may be an element of a deliberate snub to India, but it could also be a statement that there are different governance structures that Xi Jinping sees as important, and the G20 may not be one of them,” said George Magnus, an economist and associate at the China Center at the University of Oxford.
“(Xi) may have wanted to use the Indian G20 as an example and said, ‘this is not something I’m going to go to because I have other more important things to do,'” he explained.
Disillusionment with the G20
For some analysts, Xi’s absence may mark a change in the way China views the G20, a premier global forum that brings together the world’s major advanced and emerging economies, which account for 80% of global GDP.
China used to view the platform as a relatively neutral space for global governance and placed a high priority on G20 diplomacy, said Jake Werner, a researcher at the Quincy Institute in Washington.
Since their first leaders’ summit in 2008, China’s top leader has always attended the meeting, including by video conference during the Covid-19 pandemic. And when China hosted its first G20 summit in 2016, he did everything he could to make the event a success to show his growing influence on the world stage.
Since then, however, relations between the world’s two largest economies have been plagued by growing tensions and rivalries. Now, “China sees the G20 space as increasingly oriented toward the United States and its agenda, which Xi Jinping views as hostile to China,” Werner said.
About half of the group’s members are U.S. allies, who the Biden administration has urged to take a tougher stance to counter China. Additionally, Beijing increasingly considers tensions with other members — such as the border dispute with India — through its rocky relationship with the United States, Werner said.
Beijing is irritated by New Delhi’s growing ties with Washington, especially its involvement in the Quad Alliance, a US-led security grouping that China calls the “Indo-Pacific NATO.”
“China sees India in the anti-Chinese camp and therefore does not want to add value to a major international summit that India is hosting,” said Happymon Jacob, professor of international studies at Jawaharlal Nehru University in New Delhi.
Divisions over the Ukraine war also cast a shadow over the summit. India has so far not been able to negotiate a joint statement at any of the key G20 meetings since assuming the presidency last December.
China’s refusal to condemn the Russian invasion and its continued diplomatic support for Moscow have amplified its friction with the West.
“China has said it believes the G20 should be limited to economic discussions. It should not be politicized around the geopolitical fault lines that the United States and the Europeans want to push,” Werner said.
Chinese analysts agree that Beijing may view the G20 as a platform of decreasing value and effectiveness.
Shi Yinhong, professor of international relations at Renmin University, said the G20 has become a more “complicated and challenging” arena for Chinese diplomacy compared to several years ago, as the number of China-friendly members has declined. .
Alternative governance structure
Xi last attended the G20 summit in Bali, Indonesia, in November last year, when he emerged from Covid-19 isolation and declared his return to the world stage. During the two-day summit, she held diplomatic meetings with 11 world leaders — including US President Joe Biden — and invited many of them to visit China.
Since then, a long list of foreign dignitaries has knocked on Beijing’s door to meet Xi, including G20 leaders from Germany, France, Brazil, Indonesia and the EU, as well as US Secretary of State Antony Blinken.
However, Xi has only made two foreign trips this year, and both are critical to his attempt to reshape the world order.
In March, Xi traveled to Moscow to meet with President Vladimir Putin, an “old friend” who shares his deep distrust of American power. Last month, he attended the BRICS summit in Johannesburg, South Africa, where the bloc announced the admission of six new members.
The enlargement, described as “historic” by Xi, is a great victory for Beijing, which has long been trying to turn this informal economic group into a geopolitical counterweight to the West.
Magnus, the Oxford University expert, said the expanded BRICS is an example of the alternative governance structure Beijing wants to build: it includes some of the most important countries in the Global South and China plays a central role.
In recent years, Xi has laid out his vision for a new world order with the announcement of three global initiatives: the Global Security Initiative (a new security architecture without alliances), the Global Development Initiative (a new vehicle to finance the economic growth) and the Global Civilization Initiative (a new state-defined value system that is not subject to the limits of universal values).
Although broad and seemingly vague in essence, “they are designed as an umbrella under which countries can unite around a narrative set by China, which is different from the type of governance structure that prevails under the auspices of the G20,” Magnus said. .
Next month, the Chinese leader is expected to host the Belt and Road Forum to mark the 10th anniversary of his global trade and infrastructure initiative, a key element of Beijing’s new global governance structure.
Magnus said initiatives such as the Belt and Road, BRICS and the Shanghai Cooperation Organization – in which Beijing is a founder or one of the main players – now have a much higher status in China.
“These entities exist as alternative structures that China has traditionally joined and in which it has had to share prominence with the United States,” he said.
“It’s also sending a message to the rest of the world — not just countries in the Global South, but also countries swinging in the world of liberal democracy — that this is China’s playing field.”
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