After years of ever-escalating tensions between Washington and Beijing, Joe Biden and Xi Jinping explain themselves for the first time face to face on Monday on the Indonesian island of Bali, preamble to a G20 summit clouded by the war in Ukraine .
• Read also: Biden wants to press Xi on North Korea at G20
• Read also: Biden wants to discuss ‘red lines’ with Xi not to cross
• Read also: Apple restricts iPhone file sharing in China
Nine months after launching his army to invade Ukraine, Russian President Vladimir Putin will be conspicuously absent from the meeting of leaders of major world economies on Tuesday and Wednesday, the largest such gathering since the start of the pandemic.
The conflict in Ukraine is not officially on the menu of the event, but between soaring energy and food prices and fears of nuclear escalation, it dominates concerns and sparks divisions that threaten to come to light between Westerners and countries of the South gathered on the tropical island.
A first glimpse of the tone of the event will be given on Monday with a meeting between the American president, who arrived in Bali on Sunday evening, and his Chinese counterpart, a first in their current roles.
The two men, who have known each other for a decade, have no shortage of topics to discuss. Besides China’s refusal to condemn the Russian invasion, Washington and Beijing are at loggerheads over issues ranging from trade to human rights in China’s Xinjiang region to the status of Taiwan.
Joe Biden wants in particular to urge Beijing to use its influence to moderate North Korea, which has just carried out a record series of missile launches, seeming to be preparing to conduct the 7th nuclear test in its history.
“I know Xi Jinping, he knows me,” Biden said, saying they’ve always had “frank discussions.”
“We have very few misunderstandings. We just have to determine what the red lines are, ”said the American president.
His national security adviser Jake Sullivan assured that Mr. Biden hoped for “direct” exchanges, but also to find subjects for “cooperation on substantive issues”. “The United States is ready for fierce competition with China, but does not seek confrontation,” he told reporters aboard Air Force One.
Ryan Hass, former China official of the US National Security Council, said the Chinese president “should not be as accommodating with Biden”, as he was with German Chancellor Olaf Scholz during a recent meeting, so as not to be seen. as “acceding to its demands on Ukraine, nuclear, or North Korea”.
British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak, who visited Indonesia on Sunday, will urge other powers to unite against ‘malicious actors’ in the global economy in a thinly veiled attack on China. .
Vladimir Putin has decided to be represented by his head of diplomacy Sergei Lavrov at the G20, officially for scheduling reasons. But some see it as a sign that the trip was politically risky, especially as his army is retreating into southern Ukraine.
In a statement, the Russian Foreign Ministry “rejected the politicization of the G20” and called on it to focus on the economic issues behind the creation of this format bringing together the world’s major economies rather than on the subjects security under Moscow’s view of the UN.
Russia is expected to be under pressure to extend a deal allowing the export of grain and fertilizer through Black Sea ports, which expires on November 19.
At a minimum, Joe Biden and his allies want to get a clear message from the G20 to Vladimir Putin that a nuclear conflict is unacceptable. But even on this subject, the rapprochement between China and Russia could make a common message with Westerners unattainable.
Host of the summit, Indonesia has already warned that one should not necessarily expect the traditional final joint communiqué which concludes this type of meeting traditionally.
The summit will nevertheless give a rare opportunity to Western leaders, supporters of Ukraine, and to the countries of the South, many of whom refuse to condemn Moscow, to talk to each other.
And Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky will be able to plead his case directly, speaking by videoconference.
“It is important at this brutal moment in human history that there is international cooperation and the G20 will be another opportunity to look each other in the eye,” European Council President Charles Michel said on Saturday.