VOA Reports Ahead of G20 Summit in India | VOA News

VOA's Paris Huang reports from New Delhi, India, ahead of the G20 summit, September 7, 2023.

Analysts say that when the G20 summit kicks off Saturday in New Dehli, the absence of China’s leader Xi Jinping is likely to overshadow efforts to address pressing global issues such as climate change and Russia’s war in Ukraine.

Beijing has said little about why Xi will be absent. In a one-sentence notice on its website Monday, China’s Foreign Ministry announced that Premier Li Qiang would attend instead. At a press briefing later that day, ministry spokeswoman Mao Ning had little to add, only that, “China has all along attached great importance to and taken an active part in G20 events.”

Analysts say that Xi’s decision to skip the meeting raises questions and highlights the shifting priorities of Beijing’s foreign policy agenda. For starters, they say, not attending will mean missing out on opportunities to engage with other world leaders at the highest level and improve relations.

“China wants to be a leader in global diplomacy, but Xi’s absence contradicts that image,” Moritz Rudolf, a fellow at Yale Law School’s Paul Tsai China Center, told VOA in a phone interview.

Rudolf said the decision also reflects the shifting focus of China’s foreign policy agenda, which prioritizes engagement with developing countries.