Chinese President Xi Jinping skipping the weekend G20 summit in New Delhi is not unusual, Indian Foreign Minister Subrahmanyam Jaishankar says, adding that the decision has nothing to do with tense ties with New Delhi.
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The diplomat told a local news agency on Wednesday that Xi’s absence will not affect negotiations to produce a consensus communique at the gathering of world’s largest economies slated to be held on Saturday and Sunday.
Beijing has said that relations between the two nuclear-armed Asian giants remain “generally stable” despite Xi’s decision not to attend the Group of 20 summit in the Indian capital.
This week, China announced that Premier Li Qiang, who took office in March, would represent the country at the meeting. Jaishankar noted that a “country’s position is obviously reflected by whoever is the representative”.
Relations between China and India remain frosty over a border dispute that led to a clash three years ago in which 20 Indian and four Chinese soldiers were killed.
It has turned into a long-running standoff in the rugged Himalayan area where each side has stationed tens of thousands of military personnel backed by artillery, tanks and fighter jets.
The border clashes came a year after India stripped the semi-autonomous status from the disputed Kashmir region, parts of which are controlled by China. Beijing did not attend the G20 tourism meeting held in May in Indian-administered Kashmir. Late last month, New Delhi criticised Beijing for including Indian territories in China’s new map released on August 28.
This week, India is staging military exercises near the Chinese border, which will continue through the summit.
Analysts said Xi giving the summit a miss was a new setback to ties between the Asian giants.
But Xi’s absence could also be a signal of his narrative of ‘the East is rising, and the West is falling’ as well as showing solidarity with Russian President Vladimir Putin, said Wen-Ti Sung, political scientist at Australian National University.
Without mentioning the dispute with India or the reason for Xi’s decision not to attend, Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs spokesperson Mao Ning said Chinese leaders have “always supported India’s hosting of this year’s summit and are ready to work with all parties to make the G20 summit a success”.
“At present, China-India relations remain generally stable, and dialogue and communication have been maintained at all levels,” Mao told reporters at a daily briefing.
“We are willing to work with the Indian side to promote greater and continuous development of China-India relations,” she said.
