The reunion of a “dysfunctional” family: this is how the UN chief described the G20 summit on Friday, which will seek compromises on the economy and the climate, but which remains deeply divided on the war in Ukraine.
Most heads of state and government arrived in New Delhi on Friday to attend a two-day meeting on 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 great diplomatic rally.
The G20 was born in 2008 out of the desire to regulate global finance, then devastated, by bringing old industrialized nations and emerging powers around the same table.
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, whose face is omnipresent on the panels welcoming delegations to New Delhi, wants to take advantage of this summit of the world’s twenty leading economies to assert his place in the world diplomatic hierarchy.
The Hindu nationalist head of government and the Democratic president, at the end of a meeting closed to the press but of which the Indian government broadcast very polished images, praised in a joint press release the “solid and lasting partnership” between their two countries.
They no longer leave each other, or almost: their meeting follows a state visit by Narendra Modi to the White House in June.
And the Indian Prime Minister said he was “impatient” to receive the American president again next year for a meeting of the Quad (Japan, Australia, India, United States), this diplomatic format that Washington has relaunched to demonstrate to China.
The absence of the Chinese and Russian leaders “is a disappointment for India”, commented Kurt Campbell, an adviser to Joe Biden. “For our Indian interlocutors, it is both gratifying and reassuring that the United States is there,” he said.
The Americans intend to use all their weight at a time when the global family is showing itself to be “dysfunctional”, as the Secretary General of the United Nations, Antonio Guterres, deplored on Friday.
“Divisions are growing, tensions are exploding and trust is eroding – all of which (taken) together raise the specter of fragmentation and, ultimately, confrontation,” he said.
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.
On Ukraine, on the other hand, he hinted that disagreements remained, during an exchange with the press: “the United States and its allies remain focused, determined and resolute when it comes to Ukraine, and we “We said this quite clearly to all our interlocutors.”
India, the G20 host, did not adhere to 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 in New Delhi by Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov, who has already set the tone in a statement: “We are working closely with all G20 countries in order to (…) fight against attempts to explain humanitarian and economic problems in the world solely through the conflict in Ukraine.
China sends Prime Minister Li Qiang.
On Thursday, Mr Modi reiterated his wish to expand the bloc into the G21 with “the inclusion of the African Union as a permanent member”. A project which, it is a rare thing at the G20, seems more or less to achieve consensus.
09/08/2023 19:31:10 – New Delhi (AFP) – © 2023 AFP