Chinese President Xi Jinping will not attend the G20 summit scheduled for this weekend in New Delhi, India. Instead, he will send Premier Li Qiang in his place, according to the nation’s foreign ministry.
“As has been announced just now, Premier Li Qiang will lead a delegation to the New Delhi G20 Summit in India. The G20 is an important forum for international economic cooperation. China has all along attached great importance to and taken an active part in G20 events,” foreign ministry spokeswoman Mao Ning said during a Monday press conference. “During this year’s G20 Summit, Premier Li Qiang will share China’s views and propositions on G20 cooperation, and promote greater solidarity and cooperation among G20 countries and joint response to global economic and development challenges.”
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Mao did not clarify why Xi would not attend the summit when asked.
Last week, Reuters reported that Xi would skip the event, citing his absence as a rebuke to host India. In April, India surpassed China as the most populous nation in the world for the first time since 1950, according to estimates from the United Nations.
Yet reports of Xi’s absence have led President Joe Biden to comment that he was “disappointed,” though he was committed to meeting with the Chinese leader at some point in the future. However, no date has been set. The summit had been widely seen as a probable moment for the two leaders to meet, but that has been dashed given Xi’s decision not to attend.
The last time Biden and Xi met was on the island of Bali in Indonesia during last year’s G20 summit, the only time during Biden’s presidency when the two leaders have met in person.
Tensions between the United States and China rose after the scouting of a Chinese spy balloon, which led to outrage from American lawmakers. Several senior Biden administration officials visited China in an attempt to restore relations, most recently Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo who visited Beijing.
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“We are in a fierce competition with China at every level, and anyone who tells you differently is naive,” Raimondo told NBC’s Meet the Press on Sunday. “All of that being said, we have to manage this competition. Conflict is in no one’s interest. We need to manage the competition responsibly. That’s good for America. That’s good for the world.”
Russian President Vladimir Putin will also not attend the G20 summit, sending Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov in his place. Putin faces an International Criminal Court arrest warrant over alleged war crimes in Ukraine.
