Leaders of the Group of 20 economies will kick off their two-day summit from Saturday in India amid an intensifying rift among member states over Russia's war on Ukraine and the ongoing crisis over global energy and food security.
As India, which has maintained good relations with Russia, is this year's chair of the G-20 summit, concerns are mounting that the leaders may fail to map out a joint communique at the end of the gathering, diplomatic sources said.
The sources also said Russian President Vladimir Putin and Chinese President Xi Jinping are likely to skip the meeting in New Delhi, reinforcing expectations that the two countries will not actively cooperate in forming agreements with other G-20 nations.
The G-20 has managed to agree on a joint statement at every gathering since its inaugural summit in 2008. Failure to do so could spark skepticism about the framework's ability to find common ground, political analysts said.
Under India's presidency, the G-20 stopped short of crafting a joint statement at several ministerial meetings in 2023.
Foreign affairs experts have voiced fears that the upcoming G-20 summit could be dominated by the United States and its allies such as Japan, which could accelerate the division of the group into two parts -- Western democracies and what some have referred to as autocratic countries.
From the United States, President Joe Biden is scheduled to attend the G-20 gathering, while Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida, who hosted the Group of Seven summit in Hiroshima in May, is also slated to participate.
Russia is planning to send Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov to New Delhi on behalf of Putin, as its war against Ukraine has been ongoing since February 2022. Russia and Ukraine were part of the now-defunct Soviet Union.
The United States, Japan and European nations are expected to try to condemn Moscow in a communique, while Russia is almost certain to oppose the move, making it more difficult for the G-20 countries to finalize their joint statement, the sources said.
At the last summit on Indonesia's resort island of Bali in November 2022, the G-20 leaders agreed on a joint communique at the last minute by incorporating the positions of both Western nations and Russia regarding the situation in Ukraine.
As for rising global energy and food prices, triggered largely by Russia's invasion of Ukraine, the G-20 countries, some of which have been suffering from sharp inflation, might not make concessions at their summit, the sources added.
While the United States and other G-7 major industrialized nations have been bolstering economic sanctions against Moscow, India and China, the world's two most populous countries, have continued to import natural resources from Russia.
The latest G-20 summit, meanwhile, will take place as tensions between Tokyo and Beijing have been escalating over Japan's discharge of treated radioactive water into the Pacific Ocean from the crippled Fukushima nuclear power plant, which began on Aug. 24.
On Wednesday, Kishida held a brief conversation with Chinese Premier Li Qiang in Jakarta, where they joined meetings related to the Association of Southeast Asian Nations. The focus is on whether Kishida and Li will hold bilateral talks in New Delhi.
Along with members of the G-7 -- Britain, Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan and the United States plus the European Union -- the G-20 also includes Argentina, Australia, Brazil, China, India, Indonesia, Mexico, Russia, Saudi Arabia, South Africa, South Korea and Turkey.
