External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar on Saturday said that China was very supportive of various outcomes at the G20 Summit held in New Delhi.
Responding to a question on the absence of Chinese President Xi Jinping from the G20 summit, EAM Jaishankar said, "It's for every country to decide at what level they will be represented. I don't think one should overly read meanings into it. What I think is important is what is the position that country has taken, and how much that country has contributed to the deliberations and the outcomes, and I would say that China was very supportive of the various outcomes."
The remark comes after India reached a 100 per consensus on the New Delhi Declaration on Saturday, the first day of the G20 Summit.
China's Ministry of Foreign Affairs earlier announced that Chinese Premier Li Qiang will attend the 18th G20 Summit to be held in New Delhi, India on September 9 and 10.
Quoting foreign ministry spokesperson, Mao Ning, the statement read, "At the invitation of the government of the Republic of India, Premier of the State Council Li Qiang will attend the 18th G20 Summit to be held in New Delhi, India, on September 9 and 10."
However, no reason was given in the statement about Xi's absence from the summit.
At the press conference, highlighting that G20 is not the platform to resolve geopolitical and security issues, Jaishankar said that the leaders recognized that they can have significant consequences for the global economy, "In particular, they dwelt on the ongoing war in Ukraine and the impact it has had, especially on developing and least developing nations still recovering from the pandemic and economic disruption."
The declaration, which was announced by Prime Minister Narendra Modi at the start of the second session of the G20 Leaders' Summit, said that the New Delhi Declaration, "We highlighted the human suffering and negative added impacts of the war in Ukraine with regard to global food and energy security, supply chains, macro-financial stability, inflation and growth, which has complicated the policy environment for countries, especially developing and least developed countries which are still recovering from the COVID-19 pandemic and the economic disruption which has derailed progress towards the SDGs. There were different views and assessments of the situation."
"We appreciate the efforts of Türkiye and UN-brokered Istanbul Agreements consisting of the Memorandum of Understanding between the Russian Federation and the Secretariat of the United Nations on Promoting Russian Food Products and Fertilizers to the World Markets and the Initiative on the Safe Transportation of Grain and Foodstuffs from Ukrainian Ports (Black Sea Initiative), and call for their full, timely and effective implementation to ensure the immediate and unimpeded deliveries of grain, foodstuffs, and fertilizers/inputs from the Russian Federation and Ukraine. This is necessary to meet the demand in developing and least developed countries, particularly those in Africa," it added.
"...Considerable time was spent, especially in the last few days in regard to geo-political issues which really centred around the war in Ukraine. The question who helped? I mean, eventually, everybody helped because everybody came together for the consensus," Mr Jaishankar said.
Stating that the emerging economies played a major role in the Declaration to get adopted, "EAM said, "I think the emerging markets took a particular lead on this, and many of us have a strong history of working together. Bear in mind that actually, you have four developing countries in succession as G 20 presidency Indonesia, India, Brazil and South Africa but I would say rather than who helped? The point to be recognized is that a common landing point was ultimately fashioned out..."
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