Xi’s G20 absence | Mint

It now seems clear that China’s President Xi Jinping won’t be attending this week’s G20 summit in New Delhi. That would make him the second major leader after Russia’s President Vladimir Putin to skip the event. The latter’s absence is easier to explain. Putin has been shunned by the US-led West for Ukraine’s invasion, and a legal warrant for his arrest issued by the International Criminal Court makes it safer for him to stay home. But Xi not showing up would make it harder for the forum to try stalling a cleaving apart of the world into adversarial blocs. Of late, China has had prickly relations with the US over trade and Taiwan, with Japan over a nuclear clean-up, and with India over Chinese territory versus Indian. Beijing’s geopolitical ambitions have been rising, and Xi’s presence at the heads-of-state gathering would have given it a chance to dial down tensions. That India’s northern neighbour is ready to miss that opportunity reflects poorly on its regime’s instinct for diplomacy. As the old British saying goes, jaw-jaw is always better than war-war. And the more often that world leaders meet in person, the more likely China’s rise will actually be as “peaceful” as promised.