Chinese President Xi Jinping is likely to skip the upcoming G20 Summit being held in Delhi, sources familiar with the matter in India and China told Reuters.
The G20 Leaders’ Summit is scheduled to be held from September 9-10 at a newly built international convention and exhibition centre — Bharat Mandapam — at Pragati Maidan. The Summit is expected to be one of the largest gatherings of world leaders in India.
Two Indian officials, one diplomat based in China and one official working for the government of another G20 country said Premier Li Qiang is expected to represent Beijing at the September 9-10 meeting in New Delhi, the Reuters report revealed.
Recently, Xi and Prime Minister Narendra Modi held a rare conversation on the sidelines of the BRICS meeting in Johannesburg and discussed reducing tensions in the bilateral relationship that soured after clashes along their Himalayan frontier in 2020 left 24 soldiers dead.
Meanwhile, Russian President Vladimir Putin has also conveyed his inability to attend the G20 Summit on September 9 to 10 in India and said Russia would be represented by Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov.
The G20 summit scheduled in India was seen as a potential opportunity for Chinese President Xi Jinping to engage with US President Joe Biden, who has already confirmed his participation. This event was considered significant as both major powers aimed to mend their relations strained by various trade and geopolitical conflicts.
Xi’s most recent interaction with Biden occurred during the G20 summit in Bali, Indonesia, in November of the previous year.
Nevertheless, he did participate in a gathering of leaders from the BRICS consortium of significant emerging economies—Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa—in South Africa just last week.
In the lead-up to the G20 summit, a series of ministerial meetings in India have been marked by disagreement. Notably, Russia and China have jointly resisted endorsing collective statements that contained paragraphs denouncing Moscow’s incursion into Ukraine during the previous year.
Amidst this backdrop, Xi Jinping and Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi engaged in dialogue on the fringes of the BRICS gathering in Johannesburg. They deliberated on strategies to alleviate tensions in their bilateral relationship, which had deteriorated following confrontations along their Himalayan border in 2020, resulting in the loss of 24 soldiers.