This Thursday and Friday, New Delhi will host the Group of Twenty Foreign Ministers’ Meeting, which is widely expected to provide a peek into the likely scenarios for the G20 Summit in September, also hosted by India.
And going by the G20 Finance Ministers and Central Bank Governors meeting held in Bangalore late last week, this is expected to put India’s diplomatic finesse to the test to minimize chances of this becoming one more example of G20 leaders talking at, rather than with, one another.
While it is comforting to know that US Secretary of State Antony Blinken, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov and British Foreign Secretary James Cleverly have confirmed they will sit face to face in New Delhi, Beijing is expected to send Qin Gang, who will be formally confirmed as China’s next foreign minister at the five-yearly meeting of the National People’s Congress starting next week.
Other public soundbites of most participants have also not been discouraging.
What is also encouraging is the fact that this week’s meeting is expected to see representatives from as many as 40 countries, including those from the non-G20 nations and multilateral bodies invited by India.
Given India’s already increased global visibility, all this promises to shine searchlights on India’s G20 presidency. Already several leaders have underlined expectations from India’s leadership in redressing some of the most formidable challenges the world faces as it moves into life post-pandemic.
Minimizing collaterals
Of course, India’s presidency of the G20 and this foreign ministers’ meeting will have a share of serious challenges. For instance, the host has to keep alert to several intended and unintended consequences and minimize their collaterals, if any.
As usual, the participants will not just be distracted by their respective domestic dynamics and bilateral discords but also by their desire to maximize outcomes for themselves by attending multiple meetings of several subsets of multilateral groupings that will be present within this inordinately large gathering.
For example, apart from the main G20 deliberations and several bilateral meetings lined up for these two days, there will be parleys, on the sidelines, at the level of the Group of Seven advanced industrialized nations, the BRICS (Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa), the Quadrilateral Security Dialogue (Australia, India, Japan and the United States), and the Russia-India-China strategic triangle, to count a few that are known for hosting such parallel meetings along with the G20.
Ensuring everyone is optimally productive and happy can be a nightmare for the host country, especially so when it is also expected to be present at most of these meetings.
Apart from logical challenges of matching various timelines and protocol requirements, ensuring convenient movement and venues, there are always last-minute hiccups and changes that were unforeseen. Canadian Foreign Minister Mélanie Joly, for instance, was in New Delhi in early February and was not expected to make a return visit this soon.
But the first casualty, on Tuesday, was the last-minute cancellation of Japanese Foreign Minister Yoshimasa Hayashi, which Indian officials described as “unbelievable.” It is of course understandable that in Japan all ministers always attend the Diet’s budget session, which is taking place this week.
Now, this could put the meeting of Quad foreign ministers in jeopardy, which India wishes to host in order to balance out its hosting of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) foreign ministers’ meet at Goa in May. As well, Hayashi’s absence may be disconcerting for his G7 counterparts, as Japan is scheduled to hold the G7 Summit in May.
BRICS and the Russia-India-China triangle are also known for holding meetings on G20 sidelines. While these may raise eyebrows in the United States and its allies, these could help India set the tone for hosting the Council of Foreign Ministers of the SCO in Goa in May.
Also, other than fine-tuning India’s engagement with Sino-Russian duo in mutually disengaged G20 and SCO groupings, this could help India to that Pakistan sees India’s invitation in the purview of the SCO and not from the prism of toxicity of their bilateral relations.
Staying focused
The biggest challenge of course will be to ensure tje G20 stays on course without being frayed by participants’ Ukraine-centric speeches and their predispositions distracting them from focusing on the real global challenges.
The Bangalore meeting of G20 finance ministers and central-bank governors late last week saw this major powers’ geopolitics blocking consensus-building on their final communiqué. Indian Finance Minister Nirmala Sitaraman had to make a chair’s summary that underlined differences in their wording on the Ukraine conflict.
It is known now that China and Russia refused to sign the final communiqué, and Russian officials later told media they were chided by counterparts from Germany and Canada.
Likewise, continued tensions between China and the United States would be another major challenge that could deadlock consensus-building. Relations between the two largest economies remain strained by the controversy over the US shooting down a Chinese weather balloon this month, presenting the most recent example of their brinkmanship.
While this saw Blinken canceling his China visit at very last minute, Chinese State Councillor and senior foreign-policy adviser Wang Yi called the US action “unimaginable” and “hysterical,” and now, to make things further complicated, President Xi Jinping is expected to travel to Moscow to meet with President Vladimir Putin.
Indian Foreign Minister Subrahmanyam Jaishankar has repeatedly underlined India’s position on the Ukraine crisis and has even gone to the extent of calling it Europe’s problem – a remark most recently echoed in German Chancellor Olaf Sholz’ Munich Security Conference speech. But in a country that believes in Aatithi devo-bhava (guest is God), Jaishankar may have to hold back his tough talking style a bit.
At the same time though, India has to stay on course and remain assertive with its core beliefs. India could put to use its newfound bonhomie with middle powers and/or emerging economies as well as its re-emergence as the voice of the Global South.
Ideally, India would like to see that the Ukraine conflict does not hijack its G20 meetings and stay focused on its core mandate of renovating the global governance architecture and in delivering representative and effective economic and financial decision-making.
This is the moment for India to come true to expectations of so many stakeholders and ensure that the G20 remains focused on specific global challenges like climate change and the debt crisis for the developing nations.
Other major issues that need the urgent attention of the G20 include stabilizing food and energy prices and supplies, and redressing the onset of inflationary and recessionary forces for an early post-pandemic economic recovery.
Follow Swaran Singh on Twitter @SwaranSinghJNU.