The themes of global post-Covid health cooperation and a post-Ukraine energy market will ostensibly be the central themes of the G20 meeting in Bali, attended by leaders representing the world’s largest economies.
But the intergovernmental forum, in effect a high-level talking shop which generates nothing but broad voluntary commitments, takes place against a background of growing rifts between the major geopolitical powers. It has been described as the first global summit of a second cold war.
For the Indonesian presidency, and other independents like India, the desire for geopolitical stability, balancing between Russia, China and the west, which is preoccupied with Ukraine, makes unlikely any agreement on more than the broadest statement of common purpose.
The EU will as usual emphasise that the G20 meetings are an important expression of a somewhat battered collective will to strengthen global multilateralism and joint approaches to world problems like climate change and the war in Ukraine. But, in reality, interest in the meeting will inevitably be dominated by the important bilateral sideshow, an encounter between the two big-beast presidents in attendance, China’s Xi Jinping and Joe Biden of the United States.
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Their first face to face meeting came at a time of continuing tensions between the two countries, notably over trade, human rights and Beijing’s threats to invade Taiwan. Both sides seemed keen to lay the basis for a warmer relationship, but it is clear that tensions remain on Taiwan and on Ukraine. US secretary of state Antony Blinken is to visit Beijing in a follow up to the Bali meeting.
China’s position will ensure the final agreed communiqué from the G20 will not condemn Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, through Xi’s decision to oppose the use of nuclear weapons is seen as significant. In the early days of the invasion of Ukraine, Xi committed himself to a Russian friendship “without limits”.
The worse the war goes for Putin, however, the more clearly Xi is signalling where those limits actually lie.