What India gained – and lost – from the G20 foreign ministers meeting
4 min read . Updated: 05 Mar 2023, 02:27 PM IST
Premium- G20 members may not have agreed on a joint statement, but the lament that India has no ability to broker consensus on the global stage is misplaced
Playing in the big leagues is not easy but if India is indeed a ‘leading power’, as its foreign minister says it is, then directing jamborees like the G20 foreign ministers meet and organising more functional and focused meetings like those of the Quad foreign ministers – as India did this past week – are necessary.
Even so, it is important to rate India’s gains from such exercises.
Let’s start with the positives. While all events are occasions for diplomatic signalling, little can be realistically expected in terms of actual output from such large and diverse groupings as the G20. Thus, the lament that no joint communiqué was adopted at the G20 foreign ministers meeting, and that this reflects India’s inability to broker unity and consensus, are misplaced.
It has been a year since the Russian invasion of Ukraine, and in that time ideological divisions between the US-led West on the one side and Russia and China on the other have only become sharper as there seems to be no end in sight to the military conflict. The likelihood of reaching an agreement was therefore low.
For India to be organising the G20 summit in such a time is no mean challenge. If anything, New Delhi should be lauded for simply being able to get everyone together under the same roof. US Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov met for the first time since the Ukraine invasion, even as initial reports suggested that they might not. Even though the face-to-face meeting lasted barely 10 minutes, it is still a significant milestone.
Further, the Chair’s Summary and Outcome Document issued at the end of the foreign ministers’ meeting was a rather innovative alternative to any watered-down joint statement, and perhaps a model to be followed in other multilateral groupings. The document stated that “All G20 Foreign Ministers agreed to paragraphs 1, 2 and paragraphs 5 to 24". So it is just two paragraphs that are at the heart of the contention between Russia and China on one side, and the other 18 countries. There is, by and large, clarity on critical issues.
India should take credit where it is due. But this also means expectations from the country will be high going forward.
Paragraph 3 of the Outcome Document “deplores in the strongest terms the aggression by the Russian Federation against Ukraine and demands its complete and unconditional withdrawal from the territory of Ukraine".
Paragraph 4 notes, “It is essential to uphold international law and the multilateral system that safeguards peace and stability" and also has reference to Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s declaration when he met the Russian President Vladimir Putin last year, stating, “Today’s era must not be of war."
For a country that has traditionally preferred abstentions to voting decisively at the UN, India appears to have stated its preference clearly by siding with the majority on the paragraphs 3 and 4. However, the G20 document is not legally binding and the real issue that other countries have with respect to India is of its sincerity of purpose and consistency. If anything, the only thing New Delhi is consistent about is its desire to balance between the West on the one side and the Russians and the Chinese on the other in its quest to have the best of all worlds.
Today there is no doubt about India’s seriousness on the Quad but it continues to be chary of extending commitments to the military front – the only front that really matters if it has to keep China well-behaved. What is more, New Delhi’s lack of a complete commitment to the Quad is also being exploited. Hours after the Quad meeting, Lavrov said the foreign ministers of Russia, China and India would meet later this year as part of their regular trilateral.
This grouping’s sole purpose seems to showcase the possibility of an anti-West global order. It has little to show in terms of practical output in over two decades of existence. The language in paragraph 4 was also perhaps not strong enough to draw attention to China’s violations of India’s territorial sovereignty and integrity. It could have, given the Chinese weren’t agreeing to the rest of the paragraph in any case.
In effect, therefore, Beijing and Moscow have extracted from India all the costs of being in what is – from their point of view – an adversarial grouping like the Quad and forcing it into sub-optimal foreign policy positions. Whether India can iron out these flaws in its foreign policy by the time it exits the G20 spotlight remains to be seen.