Leaders of the Group of 20 economies kicked off their two-day summit Tuesday in Indonesia, with a rift deepening among member states over Russia's war against Ukraine and global energy and food security.
Russian President Vladimir Putin skipped the meeting on the resort island of Bali, while U.S. and Chinese leaders sat down for the same face-to-face international gathering for the first time since President Joe Biden took office in January 2021.
On Monday, Biden and Chinese President Xi Jinping, who secured an unprecedented third five-year term in power at the ruling Communist Party's twice-a-decade congress in October, held their first in-person summit in Bali.
Amid escalating tensions over Russia's aggression against Ukraine between Western democratic countries and what they call autocratic nations, the G-20 leaders may fail to map out a communique at the end of the summit, diplomatic sources said.
The G-20 has managed to adopt a joint statement since the group started an annual summit in 2008. But a failure to show the unity of the members would further spark skepticism about the global framework's ability to find common ground, political analysts said.
Indonesia, the host of this year's G-20 summit, invited Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy to the latest meeting, though the country is not a member of the G-20. The Ukrainian president may attend the meeting online.
Russia sent Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov to Bali on behalf of Putin, as its war against Ukraine is ongoing. Russia and Ukraine were part of the now-defunct Soviet Union.
At the summit, the United States, Japan and European countries are expected to call for mentioning the Ukraine crisis in a communique, but Russia is set to oppose it, probably preventing the G-20 nations from finalizing their joint statement, the sources said.
Regarding rising global energy and food prices, triggered largely by Russia's invasion of Ukraine in February, the G-20 countries, some of which have been suffering from accelerating inflation, are unlikely to make concessions at their summit scheduled to end Wednesday.
While the United States and other Group of Seven major industrialized nations such as Japan have been stepping up economic sanctions against Moscow, China and India, the world's two most populous countries, continue to import natural resources from Russia.
With 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.
Xi refrained from visiting other countries for more than two years due in part to the COVID-19 pandemic that began to spread across the globe in early 2020.
