Beijing. It was a difficult two days for Chinese Prime Minister Li Qiang, who came to New Delhi on a difficult mission in place of Chinese President Xi Jinping at the G20 summit, in terms of supporting the joint declaration.
The declaration was hailed as host India’s biggest success, successfully managing China and Russia’s differences over Ukraine. Li’s meetings with some Western leaders were also difficult, especially with Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni. .
Over the past few years, China has made major inroads in Africa with massive infrastructure investments under President Xi Jinping’s ambitious Belt and Road Initiative, but it has faced criticism over debt sustainability, especially from smaller countries.
Lee also held a meeting with British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak on Sunday, who informed him of London’s concerns about China’s interference in Britain’s democracy following the arrest of a parliamentary researcher on spying charges.
Hong Kong-based South China Morning Post quoted analysts as saying that India and the US took full advantage of the inexplicable absence of Xi Jinping, China’s most powerful leader after CPC founder Mao Zedong.
Summarizing the outcome of the New Delhi G20 summit, it said, ‘Both countries promoted US-led multilateral lending to counter China’s infrastructure diplomacy.
Adopted an aggressive stance towards developing countries and used such language in the manifesto that indirectly condemned China’s ally Russia for attacking Ukraine.
