Chinese surprise: President Xi Jinping won’t attend G20 Summit in India

SEOUL, South Korea — Chinese President Xi Jinping will not attend the Group of 20 summit in New Delhi marking the first time he has skipped the meeting of leaders of the world’s largest economies since becoming China’s top official in 2013.

The Chinese Foreign Ministry announced Monday that Premier Li Qiang, not Mr. Xi, will attend the G20, which will be held Saturday and Sunday.

President Biden said he was “disappointed” that he would not meet his Chinese counterpart at the G20. But Mr. Biden added, “I am going to get to see him.”

It is unclear whether that comment referred to the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation Leaders’ Meeting, set for San Francisco in November.

The Foreign Ministry did not say why Mr. Xi, who attended the Aug. 22-24 BRICS summit in South Africa, was skipping the high-profile meeting.

Speculation about his absence has noted territorial tensions between China and host country India, domestic issues that may require Mr. Xi’s attention and the idea that the Chinese president wants to participate in fewer events where his prestige is not guaranteed.

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Beijing and New Delhi have drawn Western ire over policies that have accommodated Moscow since Russia invaded Ukraine in February 2022.

There has also been global chatter about how U.S. power is being undermined as countries from the “Global South” tilt toward Russia, China and India.

However, India, the world’s largest democracy, is hardly aligned with China, the world’s largest communist state. The two fought a war in 1962, and bilateral relations remain strained over territorial tensions in the high Himalayas, where deadly skirmishes took place in 2020-2021.

Both nations are building up their navies, and there are concerns in India that China is flanking it in the Indian Ocean by establishing a base in Djibouti on the Horn of Africa and another at a Cambodian port.

It is unclear whether Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi will consider Mr. Xi’s absence a diplomatic snub.

But it is not just China’s relations with India that are downbeat: Beijing has banned the import of Japanese seafood following Tokyo’s initial release of wastewater from the wrecked Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant into the Pacific Ocean last month.

What’s more, Japan has signaled support for the Philippines and Taiwan, both targets of Chinese intimidation.

Mr. Xi’s decision not to attend the G20 is not his first surprise move of late.

He attended last month’s BRICS (Brazil, Russia, India, China, South Africa) meeting in South Africa, but he failed to deliver a planned speech to the summit’s business forum.

In July, Chinese Foreign Minister Qin Gang was removed from office without explanation, sparking a firestorm of speculation.

The U.S. Council on Foreign Relations called Mr. Qin’s fate “strange,” saying it was “a sign that [Mr Xi’s] run at the top has run into serious difficulties.”

In addition, post-COVID-19 China is facing economic challenges.

It is being buffeted by low growth rates, high youth unemployment and a shaky currency. Last week, Officials announced new stimulus measures to address a property-sector crisis that has defied resolution since it erupted in 2020.

Meanwhile, a noted China watcher has cited Mr. Xi’s status as the communist nation’s most powerful leader since Mao Zedong for his absence from the G20.

Alfred Wu, an academic at the National University of Singapore, told Bloomberg newswire that Mr. Xi has adopted an “emperor mindset” under which he only attends events that offer him the highest possible prestige — which is unlikely to be granted in New Delhi.

If Mr. Wu is correct, it could spell bad news for Beijing.

The U.S. Council on Foreign Relations warned in its July analysis that the Xi administration is in danger of being “cut off from society and ossifying — becoming hardened and brittle and leading the country away from the dynamism of past decades.”