President Joe Biden is planning to travel to India from Sept. 7 to 10 to attend the Group of 20 (G20) leaders’ summit in New Delhi, the White House announced on Aug. 22.
The G20 brings together the world’s major economies; its members account for roughly 85 percent of global gross domestic product. The group includes the Group of Seven (G7) countries, the European Union, and 12 other countries, including China, Russia, and Saudi Arabia.
“President Biden and G20 partners will discuss a range of joint efforts to tackle global issues,” White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said in a statement.
The discussions will include “the clean energy transition and combating climate change, mitigating the economic and social impacts of [Russian President Vladimir] Putin’s war in Ukraine, and increasing the capacity of multilateral development banks, including the World Bank.”
While in New Delhi, President Biden will also meet with several leaders on the margins of the summit. However, all eyes will be on his interactions with Chinese leader Xi Jinping. According to the White House, no meeting between the two leaders has been scheduled yet.
During the G7 summit in Japan in May, President Biden predicted a “thaw” in relations with China in the near future.
He blamed the worsening in relations on a “silly balloon” that flew over the breadth of the United States with spy equipment before finally being shot down by a U.S. fighter plane over the Atlantic Ocean.
“Everything changed in terms of talking to one another. I think you’re going to see that begin to thaw very shortly,” he told reporters during a news conference at the close of the summit on May 21.
But, with the exception of Biden Cabinet officials visiting China for talks, nothing appears to have changed since then.
In June, President Biden unexpectedly referred to the Chinese leader as a “dictator” while recalling the recent spy balloon incident.
The Chinese Foreign Ministry called President Biden’s remarks “extremely absurd and extremely irresponsible.”
Last week, during a joint press conference at the trilateral summit between the United States, Japan, and South Korea at Camp David, President Biden said that he anticipated meeting with Mr. Xi this fall.
“I expect and hope to follow up on our conversation in Bali this fall. That’s my expectation,” he told reporters.
The Department of Commerce said on Aug. 22 that Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo will travel to Beijing and Shanghai for a series of meetings next week.
This trip reflects the Biden administration’s strategy, which involves “intense competition” with China while employing “intense diplomacy” to prevent the competition from escalating into conflict, White House national security adviser Jake Sullivan told reporters during a conference call on Aug. 22.
According to Mr. Sullivan, during the G20 summit next month, the president will focus on bolstering multilateral development banks and empowering the global south, which China is trying to influence through its controversial economic development program, the Belt and Road Initiative.
“The President really wants to use it as an opportunity for the United States and like-minded partners to bring forward a value proposition, particularly for countries of the global south, and where he will really focus a lot of his energy while he is there is on the modernization of the multilateral development banks, including the World Bank and the IMF,” Mr. Sullivan said, referring to the International Monetary Fund.
“Given both the scale of the need and, frankly, the scale of [China’s] coercive and unsustainable lending through the Belt and Road Initiative, we need to ensure that there are high-standard, high-leverage solutions to the challenges countries are facing. And a way to get the most bang for our buck is through the World Bank and the IMF, which are highly effective and transparent international financial institutions.”
Nearly two decades after the first full-scale G20 Leaders’ Summit in Pittsburgh, the United States will be holding the G20 presidency in 2026.
While in New Delhi, President Biden “will also reaffirm the U.S. commitment to the G20 as the premier forum of economic cooperation globally, including by committing to the [United States] hosting the G20 in 2026,” Mr. Sullivan said.
Mr. Putin didn’t attend the 2022 summit in Bali, Indonesia, but hasn’t ruled out attending this year’s summit in New Delhi, according to media reports.
At the conclusion of their summit last year, the G20 leaders agreed to a joint communiqué in which they stated that “most members strongly condemned the war in Ukraine,” but “there were other views” as well.
