After days of speculation the People’s Republic of China’s, Ministry of Foreign Affairs in a press release announced that, Xi Jinping will not be attending (MoFA, 2023) the 18th G20 summit in New Delhi on 9 and 10 September 2023. This will be the first time that Xi will be missing the summit since taking the reins of Communist Party of China (CPC) in 2012. While there might not be a singular reason for Xi giving the summit a “snub”, the trigger point seems to be the new maps released by China’s Ministry of Natural Resources and India’s Ministry of External Affairs’ (MEA) strong rebuff (MEA, 2023). This article explores domestic and geopolitical factors that may have led to Xi giving a miss to the summit and the possible implications it will have on the India-China relationship going forward.
Reasons
There are several reasons both domestic and geopolitical that tells us why Xi is not attending the summit. The geopolitical factors at play are:
1. BRICS Summit: the Indian Prime Minister and Xi had a one on one on the sidelines of the recently concluded BRICS summit in South Africa. According to the Indian Foreign Secretary, the two leaders discussed the border situation and agreed to “intensify efforts at expeditious disengagement and de-escalation” (MEA, 2023). Furthermore, it has been reported that the two leaders spoke without any interpreters or note-takers (Sebastian, 2023). This would mean that they must have spoken candidly about the trajectory of the relationship between the two countries. Subsequently, China releasing a new map a mere four days after the two met indicates that Xi might have asked for concessions on the border and what the Indian Prime Minister refused to accept his terms.
2. Countering China’s Influence in Multilateral Organisations: Another reason related to BRICS might be China’s perception that India is attempting to dilute China’s influence in the BRICS and other organisations in which both countries have a membership. According to Anu Anwar, a non-resident associate at Harvard University’s John K. Fairbank Centre for Chinese Studies, India advocated for the inclusion of countries which it has more influence over, such as the UAE and Egypt, due to worries that an expanded BRICS might weaken Delhi’s influence within the grouping. Anwar said that “India’s goal here is to create a subgroup of countries within the BRICS grouping to diminish China’s role” (Siow, 2023). Similarly, India’s decision to hold the SCO summit virtually in July and Indian officials’ behaviour towards Chinese officials in the preceding SCO meetings was perhaps not jovial and they tried to show down. Further, the Chinese accused India of plodding through any progress of the organisation by refusing to sign the “SCO Economic Development Strategy 2030” and pursuing trivial agendas like inclusion of English as one of the official languages of SCO (Singh, 2023). This sentiment was also repeated by Chinese academicians and party officials to former Foreign Secretary Shyam Saran during his visit to Beijing in July 2023 (Saran, 2023).
3. India-US Relationship: India and US partnership is growing more than ever in the past few years. The uptick in relations is partly due to China’s growing belligerence with India on the borders and the intensifying US-China rivalry. However, China perceives that the souring relations between India and China is due to the growing closeness of India and US and not the other way around.
While geopolitical variables are at play in Xi skipping the summit, there are certain domestic undertones that might have informed his decision not to attend. Even though Xi consolidated power in the party in the 20th National Congress of the Communist Party of China in October 2022 and the ensuing National People’s Congress in March 2023, he put himself in a tricky situation. In consolidating power, Xi put an end to the concept of “Collective Leadership” that prevailed in China since Deng Xiaoping’s times. The concept of “Collective Leadership” attributed both blame and credit to the senior leadership. However, assuming full control has opened Xi to criticism and given the current economic woes of China with manufacturing Purchasing Managers’ Index (PMI) contracting for the fifth straight month (FirstPost, 2023), and Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) dropping to the lowest on record (Kawate, 2023), there is plenty of blame to go around. Further Xi is also facing political challenges with the disappearance of the foreign minister Qin Gang and Xi being reprimanded by the party elders in the Beidaihe meeting in August 2023. The economic situation and political challenges would have made it difficult for Xi to travel outside country if he wants to lead from the front to resolve the situation.
Implications for India-China Ties
Xi’s absence at the G20 summit can very well prove to be a new setback in the already turbulent relations between the two Asian giants. The relations between the two countries have been on a downward trajectory since 2020. The impasse between the two countries due to China’s insistence that the border issue should not affect other aspects of relations between the two countries and India’s stand that the border issue is fundamental to the relationship between the two countries has affected the progress in normalisation of ties. The unofficial meeting on the sidelines of BRICS between Modi and Xi and the ensuing comments by India’s Foreign Secretary certainly pointed towards a thaw in bilateral ties, but China’s played a spoiler by releasing a map making territorial claims on Indian territory and pushed back any progress made to square one. The current state of ties between India and China will have implications on how the two countries engage in dialogues and negotiation regarding border issues and larger geopolitical and economic collaborations.
References
FirstPost, 2023. China factory activity contracts for fifth straight month in August. [Online]
Available at: https://www.firstpost.com/world/china-factory-activity-contracts-for-fifth-straight-month-in-august-13060992.html
[Accessed September 2023].
Kawate, I., 2023. Foreign investment in China falls to lowest level on record. [Online]
Available at: https://asia.nikkei.com/Economy/Foreign-investment-in-China-falls-to-lowest-level-on-record
[Accessed September 2023].
MEA, 2023. Official Spokesperson’s response to media queries on the so called 2023 “standard map” of China. [Online]
Available at: https://www.mea.gov.in/response-to-queries.htm?dtl/37059/Official+Spokespersons+response+to+media+queries+on+the+so+called+2023+standard+map+of+China#:~:text=Ministry%20of%20External%20Affairs%20Government%20of%20India&text=%22We%20have%20today%20lodged%2
[Accessed September 2023].
MEA, 2023. Transcript of Special Briefing by Foreign Secretary on Prime Minister’s visit to South Africa and Greece (August 24, 2023). [Online]
Available at: https://www.mea.gov.in/media-briefings.htm?dtl/37049/Transcript_of_Special_Briefing_by_Foreign_Secretary_on_Prime_Ministers_visit_to_South_Africa_and_Greece_August_24_2023
[Accessed September 2023].
MoFA, 2023. Li Qiang to Attend the 18th G20 Summit. Beijing: MoFA.
Saran, S., 2023. India-China ties at a crossroads. [Online]
Available at: https://www.tribuneindia.com/news/comment/india-china-ties-at-a-crossroads-526956
[Accessed September 2023].
Sebastian, M., 2023. Modi and Xi meeting: India and China agree to ‘de-escalate’ border tensions. [Online]
Available at: https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-india-66613040?utm_source=Sailthru&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=China%20Brief%20-%2009052023&utm_term=china_brief
[Accessed September 2023].
Singh, A. G., 2023. Opinion: Chinese chatter paints negative picture of India-headed virtual SCO Summit. [Online]
Available at: https://www.indiatoday.in/opinion-columns/story/chinese-chatter-paints-negative-picture-of-india-headed-virtual-sco-summit-2406083-2023-07-13
[Accessed September 2023].
Siow, M., 2023. Will India end up alienated from Brics over US tilt, attempts to dilute China’s influence?. [Online]
Available at: https://www.scmp.com/week-asia/politics/article/3233159/will-india-end-alienated-brics-over-us-tilt-attempts-dilute-chinas-influence?utm_source=Sailthru&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=China%20Brief%20-%2009052023&utm_term=china_brief
[Accessed September 2023].
