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Prime Minister Narendra Modi, seen here addressing a G20 Development Ministers’ meeting in June, is set to host the group's summit in New Delhi this weekend.
Weekend at Modi’s
Well, this weekend is the moment Indian PM Narendra Modi has been waiting for, with world leaders set to gather for the G20 Summit in New Delhi.
For Modi, it’s a big chance to show the world that India is a rising and responsible power that can broker solutions to multilateral challenges — climate change, food security, inflation — while advocating, in particular, for the interests of the so-called “Global South” (an imperfect catchall for pretty much anything outside of Europe, the US, and Japan).
Modi’s mission. One of his main goals is to hammer out a plan in which rich countries and multilateral lenders make more capital available to developing countries that need it to finance green energy transitions and cope with the ravages of climate change.
But can he herd these cats? This year’s G20 has been fractious, with disagreements over how to describe the Ukraine war scuttling progress in other areas. So far, not a single G20 meeting has produced a joint communiqué.
Chinese President Xi Jinping's decision to skip the event also looms large. It was seen as a snub to New Delhi amid worsening China-India relations, but Modi will certainly want to show that he can shine for the Global South without sharing the spotlight with Beijing.
Meanwhile, US President Joe Biden is showing up with his own agenda, looking to convince the Global South that US-led financial institutions are better financial partners for economic development than Beijing. China’s deepening economic woes, and Xi's absence, may help Biden out.
The upshot: Modi in the middle. India's PM will have to work hard to broker consensus at a particularly divisive time. If this weekend’s meeting of leaders fails to issue a joint communiqué, it would be a G20 first — but certainly not one Modi will want to be remembered for.In blow to China, US secures closer partnership with Vietnam
On his way back from the G20 meeting in India, US President Joe Biden will stop off in Vietnam on Sept. 10 to seal an agreement to deepen US ties with the Southeast Asian country. The two former enemies will upgrade their bilateral relationship from a “comprehensive partnership” to a “comprehensive strategic partnership,” the highest level in Vietnam’s diplomatic hierarchy. This new top-tier diplomatic status places the US on par with China, Russia, India, and South Korea.
The change may pave the way for weapons sales and closer maritime cooperation. But possibly even more important at a time of intense US-China competition is the symbolism of Vietnam, a Chinese neighbor and fellow communist country, moving closer to the US. We asked Eurasia Group expert Peter Mumford to explain the motivations behind the deal for both sides.
For Vietnam, what is the importance of its relationship with the US?
Vietnam has long had very complicated relations with China, its giant northern neighbor. The two have close (and deepening) economic ties. Yet the Sino-Vietnamese War in 1979 and ongoing territorial disputes in the South China Sea have fueled widespread anti-China sentiment among Vietnam’s population. Strengthening relations with the US, Japan, and other players are crucial to Hanoi’s geopolitical hedging strategy as well its (unsuccessful, so far) attempts to reduce its economic dependence on China.
In addition, Vietnam has long seen its ally Russia as a counterbalance to China, but Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine has made it a less reliable partner and, more importantly, pushed it closer to Beijing. This increases the need for Vietnam to find other ways to hedge its China risk. Yet Hanoi will not move as far toward the US as some in Washington might hope – it will always seek to balance relations with the US and China.
How does Vietnam fit into the US’s strategy toward China and Asia more broadly?
Vietnam’s complex relationship with China as well as its popularity as a destination for firms from the US and other countries moving production out of China have made it increasingly important to Washington. The Biden administration’s Indo-Pacific Strategy identifies Vietnam as one of the “leading regional partners” with which it wishes to deepen relations. Kurt Campbell, the US National Security Council’s coordinator for the Indo-Pacific, has referred to India and Vietnam as the two key “swing states” that will define the future of Asia.
While the focus on strengthening relations with Vietnam is not new in Washington, these efforts were undermined during Donald Trump’s administration by its greater focus on reducing the growing bilateral trade deficit, which included accusing Hanoi of currency manipulation. The US still has some trade-related concerns – including the likely rerouting of Chinese exports to the US via Vietnam – but Biden’s team is more focused on improving bilateral relations.
How does China view the deepening US-Vietnam ties?
Beijing will be concerned to see its southern neighbor granting Washington an upgrade in ties; in a sign of ruffled feathers, China dispatched Liu Jianchao, a senior official, to Hanoi this week where he met with Vietnam’s leader General Secretary Nguyen Phu Trong. It’s important to note, however, that China’s own actions – that is, its increasing assertiveness in the South China Sea – contributed to this decision by Vietnam. This marks another self-inflicted wound for Beijing, alongside pushing the Philippines back into Washington’s orbit after a period of strained relations. Nevertheless, Hanoi will be wary of antagonizing Beijing and likely will agree to upgrade relations with several other countries as well (Australia, Singapore, and Indonesia) to dilute the impact of doing so with the US.
Biden’s trip to Vietnam follows his decision to skip the ASEAN summit earlier in the week – what does that say about the US’s strategy toward Southeast Asia?
Biden’s absence from the summit in Jakarta, Indonesia, exacerbated grumblings that the region appears to be a low priority for Washington. Yet it’s probably an indication that Washington sees investing in bilateral relations with key Southeast Asian countries such as Vietnam as likely to deliver greater geopolitical returns than working with ASEAN as a bloc. (In this regard, Indonesia President Joko Widodo may take Biden’s absence as something of a personal slight, although he hosted the US president for the G20 Summit in Bali last year). In the Indo-Pacific more broadly, the US is focused on wooing India while reinforcing alliances with Japan, South Korea, and Australia, and promoting the Quad grouping of the US, Japan, India, and Australia.
That said, the US was still represented at the US-ASEAN Summit and East Asia Summit at a very senior level with the attendance of Vice President Kamala Harris. Arguably this is on a par with China’s representation: President Xi Jinping rarely attends the China-ASEAN Summit or East Asia Summit, usually delegating these to the premier instead, as occurred again this year.
Edited by Jonathan House, Senior Editor at Eurasia Group
Saudi-led peace talks on Ukraine
Ian Bremmer's Quick Take: Hi, everybody. Ian Bremmer here. A Quick Take to kick off your week hot summer week.
And the Saudis are saying that they are going to host a broad peace conference on Ukraine this weekend. Lots to unpack here. First of all, the Ukrainians are going. It looks like the Americans are sending Jake Sullivan, the national security advisor. He's been back and forth to the kingdom a fair bit of late. And the Ukrainians are saying that these talks will be on the basis of the ten-point peace plan that they rolled out last year. Nothing particularly earth-shattering about that plan. Not a surprise they'd be okay with it. It is the Russians returning all the land.It is war reparations being paid by Russia. It is war crimes being fully investigated, prosecuted. None of which is acceptable to the Kremlin. But if the Saudis are hosting it, the Ukrainians are part of it, and everyone is invited - the Chinese, the Indians, the Brazilians, the Europeans, but not the Russians. And what we seem to see is that the Russians haven't had communications directly with the Saudis on this, and instead you have the Kremlin spokesperson saying they're studying it. You know, they're of course, they want to be constructive. That's the official position. So we're going to see where this is going. It's pretty interesting.
I mean, on the first point, the United States is consistent with its public policy that there are no Ukraine negotiations without the Ukrainians in the lead, can't talk about any of this unless it is the Ukrainian plan.So that's basically the starting point for the weekend. Hard to imagine that that is all that is said coming out of the talks. In other words, very interesting to see, if not that the Ukrainians should be expected to negotiate against themselves, but rather in the context of their present counter-offensive. Do they say anything about Crimea and the fact that that can be staged, even though they're never going to say, “No, it's just your territory, Russia, you can take it.”Might there be willingness to say that the reparations that need to be paid can be paid by anybody doesn't have to come from Russia. So if the Europeans are providing the aid to reconstruct Ukraine, as long as the aid comes, I mean, I can see things that can come out of this weekend that would be constructive and that could be multilateral with full Ukrainian engagement. That in no way makes it feel that the Ukrainians are giving up the store or look weak or under massive international pressure. So that's the first important point here.
The second is that the Saudis, of course, have had a fantastic year, maybe the best trajectory in terms of governance on the international stage of any of the G-20, which is kind of shocking if you think about, you know, where they've been over the last few years. Massive popularity for Mohammed bin Salman among every young person, say, under 40 in the kingdom, most of the world happily engaging the Gulf Cooperation Council, much more consolidated with the Saudis than it had been over the past years. Yes, there have been some tensions with the UAE, but nothing like what we've seen with Qatar recently. I mean, Al Saud reaching out to Syria and getting them reengage the peace plan. China facilitated it with the Iranians and Saudi Arabia, strong relations between the Saudis and Netanyahu, maybe joining the Abraham Accords by the end of this year. And now the Saudis taking the lead on the most substantive to date, it looks like, high-level Ukrainian talks. So that's also worth watching.
But I think the biggest point here is that the West has had a big problem outside of NATO with the Global South because so far, the policy has basically been support the war to allow the Ukrainians to defend themselves, to get their territory back, but not having much credible to say on what eventual peace talks would look like. And if you're in the Global South, you know, you want to know who's trying to end this war, because this war is not in our interests and we know it, we of course, we believe in Ukrainian territorial integrity, but we'd really like to see food and fertilizer just like get back to the global marketplace and stop having, you know, all of this on our shoulders. And we have no interest in sanctions against Russia. Well, we're trying to do business with these people, as we always have. So the fact that we would now have the ability for the West working with at least some of the Global South in talking about negotiation puts a lot more pressure on Russia and improves the diplomatic position of NATO as a whole. And the timing is kind of critical here because, yes, the counteroffensive is now truly engaged in earnest probably for the next month or two.
But, you know, you want to be in a position to start negotiations when the West is strong and consolidated and when Ukraine is fully aligned with it, at least publicly. And that's probably going to be less true in, say, six-month time as the US political cycle plays out and there's more internal fighting over how much economic and humanitarian support Ukraine is going to get as the Europeans start seeing more opposition as that occurs. Right now it's mostly Hungary that can get railroaded by the other European Union states, but soon it may well end up being Czechia. I could see Italy potentially in that basket, you know, Slovakia, other countries, because the fiscal constraints are going to grow. And if the Americans aren't providing as much economic support, it's going to be harder for some of the Europeans, too. So you definitely want a position where you're talking about what negotiations could look like and either get the Russians involved, or isolate the Russians. But either way, a better position to be in, then you're only talking about war, and the war is getting less support even among your own population. So in that regard, what the Saudis are doing here seems very smart to me. I'm not at all surprised the Americans and Ukrainians are fully engaged. They've clearly been coordinating with them closely over the past weeks. And we will watch this weekend very carefully to see where it goes.
That's it for me. And I'll talk to you all real soon.
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Backlash from Macron's China visit
Ian Bremmer's Quick Take: Happy Monday. It's Ian Bremmer here and a Quick Take to kick off our week. And I want to talk a little bit about French President Emmanuel Macron, who is in the news again this week and not for demonstrations at home. Not for trying to change the pension age from 62 to 64, I mean that and the backlash has been dominating international coverage of the French president for weeks now. But this time around, it's what he's saying on the international stage.
Specifically, Macron has just completed a trip to China with Ursula von der Leyen and brought a whole bunch of business leaders with him. Nothing shocking about that. Olaf Scholz did the same a few months ago when he went to Beijing. Was talking about Xi Jinping playing more of a role on the Russia, Ukraine crisis. There, that is a bit different than what we've seen from other leaders. It was in the G-20 in Bali when Macron went off-piste and basically said, "Hey, we'd love to have Xi Jinping engaged directly in leading diplomacy, responding to the Russian invasion." The Americans were skeptical, a number of other Western leaders a little concerned that Macron had made those statements without talking to them about it but didn't really go anywhere.
This time around, it's both a call for Europe to be less dependent on the United States, at the same time that France is in Beijing trying to increase their dependence on China, saying that the EU should not be involved in conflicts where it is not a direct party and mentioning Taiwan specifically. While of course the United States is leading military support on Ukraine, much more important to the Europeans than it is to the US. And also pushing for much more bilateral China, French engagement of Russia, Ukraine, which isn't going anywhere, at least not right now.
The response to all of that has been a level of mistrust. I mean frankly this was, until Macron started talking about the trip, was going very well. He was treated extremely well by the Chinese Government. He was welcomed. It was very much a red carpet treatment. He had lots of Chinese students that were cheering for him, displaying a lot of enthusiasm. Some of which was ginned up by the Chinese Government, but some of which might well have just been spontaneous. And the coverage, the press coverage, the social media coverage was very positive.
Macron then decided that he was going to push a lot of criticism of the United States, and of course that, especially in China itself, given the nature of the US, China relationship was not responded well to at all. It is probably the worst bilateral relationship in the G-7. It's the one leader that Biden doesn't particularly trust. It is quite probably mutual. There's lots of reasons for it. I mean in part, of course, the French Government has always had a more independent view of its own leadership role, and concerns about US exceptionalism, US hypocrisy, and France wanting an out sized role given their permanent seat, for example, at the Security Council, as well as given their historical imperial roles internationally.
Also, at the beginning of the Biden administration, the AUKUS debacle where the French were displaced by the US and the UK for multi-billion-dollar submarine deals, and the French found out about it on CNN, and you may remember the French withdrew their ambassador at that point. This is the kind of flap that just really shouldn't have happened, and in part because France wasn't really trusted and because Kurt Campbell, who was sort of the Asia czar in the White House, in the National Security Council, didn't see fit to talk to the French about it, basically thought that they were irrelevant to the Asian theater. And Anthony Blinken, the secretary of state, who speaks French fluently and has a quite good relationship with his French interlocutors, wasn't really driving Asia policy and didn't assert himself as much as he probably should have. So an embarrassment for the US, France relationship. Biden apologized about it. Hoping that all of this was fixed, but not really.
Now, the fact that French President Macron had said that NATO was brain dead back before the Russian invasion in his talk of strategic autonomy, well, that of course is something that does stick in everyone's popular consciousness. But after the Russian invasion, of course NATO became much more relevant. And indeed, Macron said it was like an electroshock for NATO at the time. And so there was a hope that that level of coordination, the defense coordination, the economic coordination, remember the EU unanimously voted to allow Ukraine membership process, unanimously has supported 10 rounds of sanctions, soon to be 11, France playing a leadership role just like everyone else. So there really was a hope that Macron's personal aspirations and ambitions for broader leadership, as well as his irritation and peak at the United States was something that had been largely assuaged. What we're seeing right now is that really is not the case and is not the case in particular as US, China relations are getting a lot worse.
One other point that I would raise here is the fact that while there is and remains very strong alignment between the United States and pretty much all of its allies on Russia, on a full decoupling of Russia economically, and strong punishment of Russia on the international stage, not something that Global South agrees with at all. That when it comes to China, the United States increasingly sees China as a hostile national security threat that should extend to significant strategic economic interactions. On critical minerals for example, on semiconductors, for example, other places. That is not met with anywhere near the same level of agreement among US allies. Almost all US allies want strong security relations with the US, but also want strong economic relations with China. Especially as China's about to become the largest economy in the world. And in that regard, the Germans, the French, and others are closer to the US private sector orientation towards China, most of them, than they are to the US Government, Democrats or Republicans.
But despite that tension, it hasn't been put on public display the way we've seen from Macron over the last 48 hours. That's unfortunate and will surely lead to backlash. Whether it leads to a broader rift in the transatlantic relationship is an open question. Let's see how the Germans, how the Italians in particular respond to Macron on this issue.
That's it for me, I'll talk to you all real soon.
India's G-20 agenda overshadowed by Ukraine war
Carl Bildt, former prime minister of Sweden, shares his perspective on European politics from Delhi, India.
What was the outcome of the foreign ministers meeting of the G-20 countries here the other day?
Well, the Indians are trying to get the G-20 to focus on food security, energy security, to be the voice of the Global South in a complicated global situation. But of course, the meeting was dominated by the controversy over Russia's war with Ukraine. And while the Indonesian chairmanship last year managed to get the agreement on the text on that particular issue, this time the Russians, followed by the Chinese, are distinctly not. And the end result was there was no agreement. The Indians, anyhow, issued a communique noting that the Russians and the Chinese did not object and tried to focus the meeting as much as they could on issues that they considered important, rightly so, for the Global South in terms of the effect of the conflict.
Is the Brexit story over?
No, no, the Brexit story ain't over. But hopefully there is a solution to the issue of trade with Northern Ireland. And Prime Minister Sunak is saying that Northern Ireland has a unique position having access or could have access both to the British market, you know, rest of the United Kingdom and of course through the integrated European EU market. It doesn't really mention that that is something that the United Kingdom as a whole could have had had it not done the rather stupid move of Brexit some years ago.
Iran nuclear deal is dead
Ian Bremmer shares his insights on global politics this week on World In :60.
Iran has announced it will enrich more uranium. Is the nuclear deal dead?
Yeah, it is pretty dead at this point. It is inconceivable to me that the Americans or allies would be prepared to cut a nuclear deal for an Iranian regime that is under this much domestic pressure and repressing its civilian population to this degree. Not to mention the fact that there's been attacks into Kurdish territories in Iraq over the last several days. There's been enormous amounts of state police repression with lots of instability. It's only growing, frankly. I can't imagine a nuclear deal getting cut here.
And that leads to the question of what the Israelis are going to do in response? What the Americans are going to do? What the Gulf States going to do in response? Because of course, none of these countries want the Iranians to go nuclear. There're nuclear breakout capabilities if they want to go that direction is a matter of weeks. So it's something we're going to watch carefully.
India now takes over as G-20 chair. What are the risks and opportunities for Modi?
Well, I mean, kind of like the Indonesians, it is an opportunity to showcase a country that's doing fairly well. And both Indonesia and India are. India in particular, investing an enormous amount of money in digital infrastructure after having not invested for decades in conventional infrastructure. I think showing off India's growth, India's demographics, India's technology, and India's willingness to play a greater leadership role on the global stage, all something Modi wants to do, and also from the perspective of a pretty strong and politically stable government with about 70% approval ratings across the country right now. There are very few leaders and governments in the position that Modi and India are in right now. That makes it a great time for them to be hosting the G-20.
Will MBS pump more oil after the Saudis shocked Argentina in the World Cup?
No. If anything, they're probably going to reduce because prices have been still on the downside over the course of the last several weeks, even though OPEC took a million barrels off their total production. And that is because of concerns of global recession, Chinese economy under producing, not as much demand. That's still where we are as we look into 2023. The bigger question is whether the Argentines or the Iranians have a tougher reception at home. The Iranians, of course, very, very brave, courageous in refusing to sing the national anthem given what's happening on the ground in Iran. The Argentines had no problem singing the national anthem. They just had a problem performing against the Saudis. And I mean, this is a country that really... they don't do many things well on the global stage, but football is right up there, and they just got crushed by the Saudis two to one. Oof. Not fun if you're in Buenos Aires right now.
Can China lead on Russia/Ukraine peace?
Ian Bremmer shares his insights on global politics this week on World In :60.
Was the G-20 a success?
Not really, in the sense that there was no effective communique, the ball was not moved on serious needles as a G-20. On the other hand, the G-7 that met within the G-20 was certainly a success. Following on all these Russian attacks on Ukraine, you have even ever more alignment between the United States and its allies on the global stage. That's certainly a useful thing to maintain, especially as people are saying, "Oh, it's going to crumble. Oh, they're going to peel off."
What would Russia/Ukraine peace negotiations look like with China leading?
Well, they would probably be pushing towards a resolution and settlement that would be much more of a territorial agreement between the two, somewhere in the middle of what the Russians want and have taken, and where the Ukrainians would want to get back to. No one in Ukraine is going to find that remotely acceptable. So number one, I have a hard time imagining that Ukrainians would accept a China-led negotiation. Remember, the Chinese have not actually condemned the Russian invasion so far, though they do support Ukrainian territorial integrity. I think this was French President Macron kind of deciding to throw this out there publicly all by himself, not something that the Americans are supportive of.
Is Mexico's democracy crumbling under AMLO's leadership?
No, not at all. I mean, certainly he wants to have more party control of a lot of democratic mechanisms, but he's not able to make big constitutional changes. The party doesn't have that level of control and neither does he personally, so the country's a democracy and he's still quite popular, but the next Morena president is going to be less popular than AMLO was. Then I expect you can get back to a competitive democratic landscape in Mexico in short order.
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Biden & Xi cool tensions at G-20
This week at the G-20 in Bali, the first in-person meeting between Joe Biden and Xi Jinping as presidents of the US and China went ... rather well, Ian Bremmer explains on GZERO World.
There was tension on Taiwan and the US-China economic rivalry. But the two leaders agreed to cool things down.
Biden and Xi found common ground on two very important issues: avoiding nuclear war in Ukraine and cooperation on climate.