Biden Won't Meet With Chinese Premier Li Qiang After Xi Snubbed G20

After President Joe Biden previously said he is "disappointed" his Chinese counterpart Xi Jinping is skipping the G20 summit in India which is kicking off in New Delhi this weekend, the White House has said Biden doesn't plan to meet the official representing China in Xi's stead, Chinese Premier Li Qiang.

President Biden departed for the G20 from Washington on Thursday evening, after which national security adviser Jake Sullivan told reporters in a briefing there's no plan to engage China at the summit.

"We don’t have a plan for the president to engage with the Chinese premier at this time," Sullivan said. He was responding to a specific question over whether recent allegations that Chinese spies were using aggressive tactics to gain access to US military bases would be raised with Beijing at the summit.

As for China in response, foreign ministry spokeswoman Mao Ning had no comment or new information, and didn't say whether the Chinese premier would seek a meeting, but it appears unlikely given Sullivan's fresh comments.

Of course, Russia's President Putin is also skipping the summit, with the Kremlin announcing Thursday he doesn't even plan a virtual address to the heads of the world's leading economies.

Given the ongoing Ukraine war, if Putin were to address to the G20, one might expect a somewhat juvenile and anti-diplomatic stunt to take place among Western leaders, such as staging a group walkout of the venue at the moment Putin spoke. This has happened in other forums, also when Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov speaks. It seems the Kremlin is avoiding this scenario altogether and doesn't see a benefit in a G20 speech.

At a moment of very strained ties between between Beijing and Delhi, given the border clash situation which has been on edge since deadly troop encounters going back to 2020, headlines in the West have been emphasizing that Biden has an 'opening' to tighten US-India ties.

According to an Axios summary of what can be expected from Biden at the summit (assuming he stays awake):

• Biden plans to use the G20 to push for a lending program for developing countries, White House officials said — a move to counter China's massive Belt and Road Initiative, which has seen billions of dollars in infrastructure projects for developing countries over the past decade.
• And the Biden administration yesterday released the text of a new Indo-Pacific supply chain agreement with a group of 14 countries that does not include China.
• Revealing the full text of the agreement the week of both the G20 and ASEAN summits highlights the administration's effort to demonstrate the U.S. can still pull together a bloc of countries to achieve multilateral goals.

Biden is flying to Vietnam after the G20 to meet with Vietnamese General Secretary Nguyen Phu Trong in Hanoi, where they are expected to unveil plans of deepened economic cooperation.