President Xi Jinping is going to skip the 18th edition of the G20 summit, hosted by India between 9 and 10 of September 2023. The Chinese Foreign Ministry in Beijing has not stated any specific reason for the leader’s absence, which is raising further speculations, as the Chinese president has never skipped the annual event since he took office in 2012.

A spokesperson for the Chinese Foreign Ministry announced on Monday that the Chinese delegation will be led by Li Qiang, the premier.

The running speculation by the media is that the absence could be due to the strained relationship between the two neighboring countries. In extension to that, it could be with regards to India’s recent protest against the newly released Chinese maps showing Arunachal Pradesh and parts of Ladakh as part of the Chinese territory.

In contrast, the Western media is of the view that the Chinese President is avoiding the US president, Joe Biden. The statement by the US president that he would be “disappointed” if President Xi skips the meeting backs the idea proposed.

However, when the EAM Dr. S. Jaishankar was questioned about the same, he said “The focus should be the country’s stance on the current issues rather than the representations. At the end of the day, countries are represented by whoever they have chosen to represent them. The levels of representation do not become the final determinant of the position of a country.”

-Anushka Upadhyay