- Tuesday, March 04, 2025
By: Shubham Ghosh
Ukraine-Russia war and US-China tensions could overshadow the G20 foreign ministers’ meeting in New Delhi this week even as host India hopes that issues such as climate change and developing nations’ debt are not overlooked.
The meeting, scheduled for Wednesday (1) and Thursday (2), will see foreign ministers of the grouping’s member-states coming together and it will be held just days after a discussion between finance chiefs of the bloc in the southern Indian city of Bengaluru where countries debated over condemning Russia for the war and failed to reach an agreement on a joint statement and settled for a summary document instead.
The outcome was similar to a G20 summit meeting in Bali, Indonesia, last November when the host nation issued a final declaration acknowledging the differences, Reuters reported.
In July last year, Russian foreign minister Sergei Lavrov walked out of a G20 foreign ministers’ meeting, also held in Bali, after the west denounced the war on a strong note.
The Russian war in Ukraine completed a year on Friday (24).
Lavrov is also set to attend the March meeting where his counterparts from the US, Antony Blinken, and the UK, James Cleverly, will be present. China is also expected to send its foreign minister Qin Gang.
Representatives from 40 nations, including non-G20 members invited by New Delhi, and multilateral bodies, will also be among the attendees.
A meeting of foreign ministers of the Quad countries – US, India, Australia and Japan – will also be held on the sidelines.
India’s Narendra Modi government wants to keep the focus of the foreign ministers’ meeting to issues such as climate change and the debt of developing countries, said an Indian external affairs ministry official on the condition of anonymity, the Reuters report added.
India does not want Ukraine to dominate the event, but it will be top of the agenda, the official said, adding that it was New Delhi’s “intention to continue playing the voice of the Global South and raising issues pertinent to the region”.
Besides the Ukraine war, the foreign ministers’ meeting will also be closely followed for how tensions between Washington and Beijing play out, including over the conflict in the east European nation.
China declined to sign the summary statement of the finance chiefs in Bengaluru along with Russia.
On Monday (27), China accused the US of “endangering” peace and stability in the Taiwan Strait after a U.S. P-8A Poseidon maritime patrol and reconnaissance military plane flew through the waterway.
US-China ties have been strained this month after the American military shot down what it claimed was a Chinese spy balloon that had drifted over the US.
Beijing said the balloon was a civilian-research vessel that was accidentally blown off course, calling Washington’s response an over-reaction.
The row even prompted Blinken to postpone a planned visit to China.
