India’s G20 presidency: Opportunity beckons
G20 meeting of world leaders in New Delhi over the next few days is likely to become an apogee for India’s foreign policy exertions, apart from providing an appropriate platform for the country to project its aspirations as an emerging global leader. Past top-level summits were never this comprehensive, nor attended by such a wide range of leadership.
New Delhi’s vaulting ambitions, however, have been dented by an unfortunate crinkle: Chinese President Xi Jinping decided to skip the summit, in a marked departure from his record of never missing any previous G20 finales. It is difficult not to discern a rebuff—or a display of petulance, depending on the viewer’s perspective—in Beijing’s decision to stay away.
Even Russia’s Vladimir Putin will not be in attendance, but that was a foregone conclusion given the ongoing war in Ukraine and the widespread, global push-back to his military adventurism. This raises a critical question: Will Xi’s absence diminish the importance of this weekend’s G20 summit and cast a shadow over our brief moment in the sun? This will depend entirely on how the Indian leadership and Sherpas bring their negotiating skills and capacity (including visible doses of humility) to the table and convert New Delhi’s G20 agenda into a meaningful and actionable document, one that resonates with India’s intentions of becoming a true representative of the Global South and provides a road-map for subsequent G20 meetings.
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