Chinese President Xi Jinping's decision not to attend the G20 summit in New Delhi this weekend has likely irritated India's leaders, despite their silence on the issue. Some analysts see Beijing's substitution of Xi by Premier Li Qiang as evidence of the work needed to resolve longstanding frosty relations between the two Asian powers. A senior member of Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi's ruling party even questioned whether the snub revealed China's resentment with India's economic rise. Others think the cold shoulder — the first time a Chinese president has not attended a G20 summit outright since 2008 — was meant for the G20 itself. After all, Xi did attend the conference of BRICS emerging-market nations in South Africa last month.

Despite the Chinese snub, this weekend's summit is a chance for India to show it is a reliable world power, balancing both its traditional relationships with the West and new groupings like BRICS. "We're in a moment where multilateral diplomacy is being reinvented and this is an area where New Delhi has been particularly strong," Ian Lesser, vice president and executive director (Brussels) at the German Marshall Fund of the United States think tank, told DW. Even so, Lesser doesn't expect the talks to deliver many actionable policy initiatives, but said the tone of the final joint communique would reveal "a great deal about whether the international system stands in terms of power and influence." World leaders, including US President Joe Biden and German Chancellor Olaf Scholz, will attend the summit, at New Delhi's new Pragati Maidan exhibition center. Russia will be represented by Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov. The talks are expected to focus on the outlook for global economic growth, as recession looms in many countries, including Germany, and as China's post-COVID rebound has disappointed so far. Climate change, debt relief and the United Nations Development Goals will also top the agenda, along with Russia's war in Ukraine, which has been a major bone of contention between member states.

G20 leaders have failed to agree on a consensus position denouncing Russia's aggression. Despite India remaining neutral on the conflict and becoming the largest purchaser of Russian oil, New Delhi recently proposed a more powerful statement, describing how the war was causing "immense human suffering" and "exacerbating existing fragilities in the global economy." The text has, however, been blocked by Russia and China, leaving Indian negotiators to either tone down the statement or allow its presidency to end without a final communique — for the first time since 2008. Deep divisions also remain over the phaseout of fossil fuels, despite the worsening effects of climate change. At a G20 energy meeting in July, ministers failed to even mention coal, the dirty fuel that remains a key energy source for economies like India and China. The two powers are among the biggest global polluters but argue that historical contributors in the West need to take a much bigger responsibility for the climate crisis.

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