China is a multilateral player: G20 Sherpa Amitabh Kant on Chinese President skipping Summit

In the absence of Chinese President Xi Jinping at the G20 summit, Premier Li Qiang will be attending the event in New Delhi. The 70-year-old Chinese President is the second head of a state of a G20 member country after Russia's Vladimir Putin to skip the much-anticipated Summit.

New Delhi:G20 Shepa Amitabh Kant on Friday downplayed the issue of Chinese Premier Xi Jinping skipping the much-anticipated G20 Summit, that begins in the national capital on Saturday. "China is a multilateral player. In multilateral discussions, the issues are very different from bilateral issues and the Chinese discuss issues of growth, and development from their perspective", Amitabh Kant said when asked about Chinese President Xi Jinping not attending the G20 Summit.

Addressing the first-ever media briefing ahead of the G20 summit here, Kant said, "The challenge about any multilateral discussion is you have to bring consensus across every issue, every country has veto power. We've been able to work with every single country and bring them on board”.

In the absence of Chinese President Xi Jinping at the G20 summit, Premier Li Qiang will be attending the event in the national capital. The 70-year-old Chinese president is the second head of a state of a G20 member country after Russia's Vladimir Putin to skip the Summit. Objections by Russia and China over the Ukraine conflict have made it difficult for India to arrive at a joint declaration at every G20 ministerial meeting.

The last time that any G20 meeting had produced a joint statement was in Bali last year. Since then, India has been issuing outcome documents and a Chair's summary.

Earlier, on China skipping the G20 summit, Union External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar said, "At the end of the day, countries are represented by whoever they have chosen to represent them. The levels of representation do not become the final determinant of the position of a country".

US President Joe Biden had said he was ‘disappointed’ that Jinping planned to skip the Summit. China's decision to skip the historic summit comes days after it released a new map laying territorial claim on Arunachal Pradesh, Taiwan, and a disputed region of the South China Sea.

India is all geared up to host the historic summit from 9-10 September, which will see world leaders like US President Joe Biden, and French President Emmanuel Macron converge under one platform to discuss and deliberate on solutions to the current global issues.