President Biden was hoping to convince the world’s largest economies to rally behind Ukraine during Saturday’s Group of 20 summit in India while also pressing his case for American investment in the developing world.
The absence of his two chief global rivals — Chinese leader Xi Jinping and Russian President Vladimir Putin — provides opportunities for Biden to make a more affirmative case at the summit, White House officials said as the gathering was getting underway in New Delhi. Biden was hoping to use the gathering to portray the United States as a credible counterweight to China’s economic outreach.
He was expected to announce new plans with partner nations in Europe, the Middle East and Asia to construct a transit corridor connecting the regions, a major challenge to Beijing’s own efforts at expanding global trade.
And he was unveiling new reforms and investments in the World Bank, which the White House says could unlock hundreds of billions of dollars in grants and loans for the developing world – providing an alternative to China’s economic ambitions in those regions.
Still, the divisions within the grouping were apparent as the gathering was getting underway.
Diplomats had been working furiously to draft a final joint statement from the leaders, hitting snags when coming up with language about Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. Russia, as a member of the G20, would have to agree on any consensus statement. Russia and China have resisted stronger language in a final statement, making any kind of consensus difficult.
Officials have arrived at compromise language about the war in Ukraine, according to a source familiar with the talks, but it remained to be seen whether world leaders will eventually sign off on the draft, and negotiations were expected to continue as the summit proceeds.
No previous G20 summit has…
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