Chinese foreign minister Qin Gang confirms participation in G20

By Prabhat Kumar Singh

New Delhi, March 1 China on Tuesday confirmed its foreign minister Qin Gang will attend the G-20 foreign ministers’ meeting in the national capital on Thursday, while uncertainty persists on whether the Japanese foreign minister Yoshimasa Hayashi or his deputy will attend due to the ongoing session of the Japanese Parliament.

Diplomatic sources said an official announcement on the matter is expected from Tokyo by Wednesday morning. Japan is a close strategic partner of India and any absence of the Japanese foreign minister will definitely stand out. On the other hand, the visit of the new Chinese foreign minister, who replaced his predecessor Wang Yi recently, is expected to include in-person talks with external affairs minister S. Jaishankar, even as the troops of the two Asian giants have yet to disengage from all friction points in the Ladakh sector.

“At the invitation of G-20 president India, Mr Qin will attend the G-20 foreign ministers’ meeting in New Delhi on March 2,” Beijing said on Tuesday.

Asked by the Chinese media on what expectations China has from the visit, Beijing said “it is important that the G-20 focus on the prominent challenges in the global economy and on development and play a bigger role in driving world economic recovery and global development,” adding that “China stands ready to work with all parties to ensure that the G-20 foreign ministers’ meeting will send a positive signal on multilateralism, food and energy security and development cooperation.”

Meanwhile, Turkish foreign minister Mevlut Cavusoglu reached New Delhi on Tuesday to participate in the G-20 foreign ministers’ meeting and also held bilateral talks with Mr Jaishankar, during which he thanked New Delhi for the humanitarian relief and rescue efforts of India under “Operation Dost (friend)” to help his country cope with the devastating earthquake that hit it recently.

The two foreign ministers also discussed the Ukraine conflict, the G-20 agenda and bilateral ties. Turkey is a close friend of Pakistan, but India-Turkey relations have improved considerably in the past few months.

Russian foreign minister Sergey Lavrov was also expected to land in New Delhi late Tuesday evening. Western foreign ministers, including United States secretary of state Antony J. Blinken, are expected to land in the national capital by Wednesday morning ahead of the “networking dinner and reception” for the G-20 foreign ministers that is scheduled for Wednesday evening. The European Union (EU) will be represented at the G-20 foreign ministers’ meeting by its high representative and vice-president Josep Borrell, the EU announced on Tuesday.

On Thursday, the G-20 foreign ministers’ meeting will be held in two sessions. The first session to be held on Thursday morning will be on “Strengthening Multilateralism and Need for Reforms, Food and Energy Security and Development Cooperation”, while the second session on Thursday afternoon will be on “Counter-Terrorism: New and Emerging threats, Global Skill Mapping and Talent Pool and Humanitarian Assistance and Disaster Relief (HADR).”

The G-20, or Group of Twenty, is an “intergovernmental forum of the world’s major developed and developing economies” and comprises 19 countries –Argentina, Australia, Brazil, Canada, China, France, Germany, India, Indonesia, Italy, Japan, the Republic of Korea, Mexico, Russia, Saudi Arabia, South Africa, Turkey, the UK, the USA)and the EU.