Russian President Vladimir Putin and Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) plan to attend the upcoming G20 summit, the leader of the host nation, Indonesia, said in an interview published yesterday.
The pair’s attendance would set the stage for showdown talks with US President Joe Biden at a time when Washington is at odds with both rival powers, particularly over situations in Taiwan and Ukraine.
It has been unclear whether Putin and Xi would attend the November talks on the Indonesian island of Bali. Moscow is isolated after its invasion of Ukraine, while the Chinese leader is limiting foreign trips because of COVID-19.
Photo: Bloomberg
However, Indonesian President Joko Widodo, in an interview with Bloomberg, said both leaders would attend the G20 summit in person.
“Xi Jinping will come. President Putin has also told me he will come,” Widodo said, according to the report.
Kremlin officials in June said that Putin accepted Widodo’s invitation to the summit, and would attend so long as the COVID-19 pandemic allowed him to.
Indonesia currently holds the rotating G20 presidency, putting it at the center of global affairs as war rages in Europe and with tensions at their highest level in years in the Taiwan Strait, where China has been conducting its largest-ever military drills.
Jakarta has come under Western pressure to exclude Putin from the G20 gathering after announcing in April he had been invited.
However, Indonesia has maintained a neutral position and called for a peaceful resolution to the months-long conflict in Ukraine, with Widodo visiting Kyiv and Moscow earlier this year.
Indonesian Ministry of Foreign Affairs spokesman Teuku Faizasyah said that Russia and China “have received the invitation and said they would attend.”
“[It is] something that we are very much hopeful,” he added.
Indonesia has also invited Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy to the summit with the world’s top economies, in a bid to foster compromise between the two countries.
The Ukrainian leader, whose country is not a G20 member, said he would attend at least virtually.
Russian Minister of Foreign Affairs Sergei Lavrov last month walked out of a G20 foreign ministers’ meeting in Bali after Moscow’s military assault on its neighbor was roundly condemned.
Xi has not traveled internationally since the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic, with a visit to Hong Kong under strict security measures being his only trip off the Chinese mainland.
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