Indonesian president says Putin and Xi will attend G20 summit, in confrontation with Biden

CNN
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The leaders of China and Russia both plan to attend G20 Summit in NovemberOn Thursday, his host said, preparing for a high-profile confrontation with the United States President Joe Biden.

Indonesian President Joko Widodo Tell Bloomberg In an interview, he had received assurances from Presidents Xi Jinping and Vladimir Putin that they would attend the conference scheduled for November on the Indonesian island of Bali.

“Xi Jinping will come. President Putin also told me that he will come.

The presence of the two authoritarian leaders will escalate the risks to the summit, which is the first of the Group of Twenty since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine Tensions are rising over the Taiwan issue.

Neither Putin nor anything attended G20 last year in Rome. Xi only recently began traveling outside mainland China as the Covid-19 pandemic waned.

The White House has not officially announced that Biden will travel to Asia for the summit, but officials say he is expected to attend.

US and Chinese officials are working quietly to arrange the first face-to-face meeting between Biden and Xi since Biden took office, focusing on the November series of summits in Asia: the G-20 in Bali, a meeting of Southeast Asian leaders in Cambodia and the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation summit in Thailand.

Tensions between Washington and Beijing It has deteriorated in recent weeks After the Speaker of the House of Representatives Nancy Pelosi’s visit to Taiwan. China increased military training And the Weapon Tests Some channels of communication with the United States were closed.

during Their last phone callBoth Biden and Xi agreed to work toward a personal meeting. Biden is a supporter of regular meetings with his foreign counterparts, even when tensions are high.

Biden and his advisers have been in talks for months about how to handle the G-20 should Putin attend, and it has been a topic of debate among his fellow world leaders in G7 summit Held in Germany earlier this summer and in NATO summit in Brussels in March.

At the G7 meeting, in particular, the leaders discussed ways to show a united front against Russia at the November conference, according to officials.

Biden said Russia should be kicked out of the G-20, and senior members of his administration withdrew from G-20 events attended by Russian officials.

But boycotting the G-20 summit was not taken seriously because Biden and his team did not want to appear to be giving up the table to Putin.

Instead, the United States and the G7 countries encouraged Indonesia to invite the Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky As a guest participant in a show of support for Ukraine.

In April, finance ministers from multiple countries, including US Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen, He left the closed session of the Group of Twenty In Washington as the Russian delegate began his prepared remarks, offering to protest Moscow for its invasion of Ukraine. Before the meeting, US officials said Yellen would not participate in certain sessions of the meeting, which includes Russia.

in G20 foreign ministers meeting Last month, US Secretary of State Anthony Blinken challenged his counterparts to stick to a tougher line on Russia, saying that for the G-20 to remain relevant, Moscow must be held accountable for the invasion.