Oscar van Heerden | Snubbing the G20: China puts its priorities first

There is much speculation as to why the Chinese and Russian presidents will not be attending the upcoming G20 summit. Oscar van Heerden writes the move is strategic on both country's parts.

Even though the upcoming G20 summit will be hosted by India, the leaders of its BRICS partners - China and Russia - won't be attending.

The Chinese government has confirmed Premier Li Qiang will attend the meeting, instead of President Xi Jinping.

There is speculation all round as to why Xi and Russian President Vladimir Putin will be absent from this all-important global meeting.  

Prime among the speculation going around is China values the BRICS formation as more critical to its geopolitical ambitions and the G20 is, in fact, becoming irrelevant.

A close second is because of the growing tension between China and India, both in terms of the ongoing border dispute and the tech sanctions imposed on Beijing. 

Strategy 

And a ridiculous third speculation, which I find absurd in the least, is unlike at the BRICS summit recently, Xi won't be the centre of attraction.

After all, he was given red-carpet treatment as he began his state visit in South Africa and also met with numerous leaders from Africa and further afield to cement some excellent trade and investment deals.  

The real reasons, as far as I'm concerned, are much more strategic on the part of China and Russia. 

Firstly, Xi does not want to meet US President Joe Biden amid ongoing and unfair sanctions and de-risking and decoupling strategies from the US and the collective West.

Why pretend all is well when his country is being portrayed as a pariah state that does not uphold human rights and is supposedly repressive towards its own citizens?

But as former Singapore minister Kishore Mahbubani so eloquently stated if China was ruling its people through repression, why is it in the year 2019, 139 million Chinese citizens left mainland China to travel and returned to their country of birth?

Not one defection at all, and yet the West speaks of repression.

Why is it you can manage to build the most dynamic economy in the world and sustain it for 30 years, and yet the government is repressive?

No, it's because of educating the Chinese population to a level not done before, and that's why China is where it is today.

For Russia, besides supporting its ally, China, Putin too sees no reason to share a platform with Biden and other Western nations since they are providing support to Ukraine.

The time of pretence and charades is gone, and the reality is these two countries are sending a clear message to the US in particular; if you want to dish it out, then be prepared to take some, too.

READ | ANALYSIS: BRICS as a piece in the puzzle of displacing US hegemony

The snub is not directed at India at all but to the US administration and Biden in particular.

No one except the European leaders, it seems, like Biden, not even his own citizens, if the latest polls are anything to go by in the US.       

Second, Xi wants to send a clear message he doesn't need to appease the US when it comes to Taiwan.

The "One China" policy is sacrosanct, and unless the US can stop speaking with forked tongues in this regard, Xi is not interested in meeting Biden.

The US finds itself in a serious quagmire, because on the one hand, it wants to give the world the impression it can do without the China market, which it can't, and on the other hand, it wants to pretend the collective West can also survive with limited interaction with China, which they also can't.

Yes, China also needs these markets no doubt, but as we observe in the case of Russia, imposing sanctions without thinking it through will hurt in the long run.  

Third, as to the growing tension between India and China, after a good meeting in South Africa and soothing interaction between Xi and Narendra Modi, there's no credibility in wanting to snub India.

On the contrary, the joint communique emanating from the BRICS summit suggests all the BRICS Plus alliance partners are of the same mind regarding geopolitical world affairs. 

While India finds itself in a geopolitical situation where it can still foster good relations with the West, I'm sure Modi understands that option is clearly off the table for China and Russia and hence their decision to decline the invitation.

It does, however, beg the question, is the G20 becoming irrelevant, since it first came about because of globalisation.

Now that the collective West realise globalisation is not working for them, they are increasingly looking inwards these days, with more protectionism and more incentives for their own homegrown companies as opposed to foreign corporations.

This means a change of strategy towards China is required.

Hence, this talk of derisking and decoupling from China and curbing its technological advancements. Xi and the Communist Party of China are responding in kind it seems.

Threat 

"US President Joe Biden will urge reforms to the IMF and World Bank that will better serve developing country needs at the G20 summit in New Delhi next month", the White House said on Tuesday.

White House National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan added the two needed to offer a better alternative for development support and financing to what he called China's "coercive and unsustainable lending" through Beijing's Belt and Road Initiative.

"We have heard loud and clear that countries want us to step up our support in the face of the overlapping challenges they face," Sullivan told reporters.

At the G20, Biden "will really focus a lot of his energy while he is there on the modernisation of the multilateral development banks, including the World Bank and the IMF," he said.

The aim was to ensure development banks offered "high standard, high leverage solutions" to the challenges developing countries faced, Sullivan added.

READ | Ebrahim Harvey: BRICS - Why bigger may not be better

It is clear from this new envisaged approach by the Biden administration they indeed see the BRICS Plus formation and its New Development Bank (NDB) as a threat, hence these superficial cosmetic changes they are going to propose at this G20 gathering.

This would be the third iteration of transformation and mandate changes of these two banks, the IMF and World Bank.

The first was its establishment when the mandate was to give loans to developing nations to become better and developed but alas this did not work as planned.

I wonder why, with constant meddling in the budgetary processes of the lending countries and insisting on structural adjustment programmes that simply only further indebt these countries.

As poor as ever

The second iteration was post-1975 when it was decided by the US the primary mandate of the banks would be to advance loans but through Multinational Corporations only.

Now with globalisation falling apart in such a spectacular manner, a third iteration is required, and this is what the Biden administration is going to propose in India this month.

One fact for sure, whichever iteration and grand scheme the US proposes, it will still only benefit the collective West, though the language will imply something new and different.

Hopefully, Africa in particular, and the rest of the global South, in general, won't fall for its semantic parlance.

It's like when Sullivan says development banks offer "high standard, high leverage solutions" to the challenges developing countries face. 

I had thought that was always the mandate, and yet Africa is as poor as ever, and its developmental needs remain. 

Mock the Belt and Road initiative all you want, but it is delivering real and tangible infrastructure needs for many African countries and in such a short period of time too.

How long have the Europeans been here extracting and not ploughing back? No wonder so many African countries in the Sahel region are saying no more.

So, before we dismiss China and suggest wrong speculations as to why it decided not to accept the invitation to the G20, let us take cognisance of the geopolitical realities facing our world today. 

It's not about India but everything to do with the global bully and hegemon, the US.

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