‘Don’t think it has anything to do with India’: EAM Jaishankar on Xi, Putin’s absence from G20 Summit

External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar said that Chinese President Xi Jinping and Russian President Vladimir Putin skipping the G20 Summit to be held in Delhi has nothing to do with India. He said that earlier too state leaders had to skip such events due to various reasons. 

Jaishankar, in an interview with ANI, said, “I do not think it has anything to do with India. I think whatever decision they make, they would know best.” 

The Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs had on Monday announced that President Xi Jinping would skip the summit and Premier Li Qiang would attend the G20 Summit scheduled to be held on September 9-10. Before that President Putin conveyed to Prime Minister Narendra Modi that he would be unable to attend the summit and Russia would be represented by Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov instead. 

The minister said that at different points of time in G20, many presidents and prime ministers chose not to come for certain reasons and “that country's position is obviously reflected by whoever is the representative on that occasion”. Jaishankar said that at certain occasions a president or two, sometimes three, have skipped the event. 

In an interview with ANI, Jaishankar said India’s G20 presidency comes at a time when the world is facing the impacts of COVID-19, Ukraine conflict, climate change, debt etc, and everyone is coming with a great deal of seriousness. He added that India has a reputation of being a constructive player and has a lot of goodwill. 

“My sense from talking to the ministers, certainly, and I know the Sherpas are in touch with each other, they are right now trying to hammer out the final document. I think everybody is coming with a great deal of seriousness,” he said.

The minister said that there is not one particular outcome or impact that should be expected from the G20 Summit. He said there are many issues and these issues did not crop up suddenly but are being discussed and have been in process for about 8-9 months. “So, this is like a culmination. These are really about 16-18 processes which are all coming together to be stitched up together to produce a summit,” he said. 

Jaishankar said that multiple countries have various problems including debt or trade or health access or green development resourcing problems. “You are going to get really a mix of issues that the world is looking at and a lot of this, the burden is on the Global South, on developing countries. So, one very important message for us is to focus on the Global South,” he said, adding that there is a larger context too of the Ukraine conflict, COVID-19 impact, and climate disruptions.  

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