Rio de Janeiro (AFP) – Chinese President Xi Jinping warned Monday that the world faces “turbulence,” as G20 leaders met in Brazil two months before Donald Trump returns to the White House. US President Joe Biden was attending his last summit of the world’s leading economies, but as a lame duck, he was eclipsed by Xi, who has cast himself as a protector of the international order in the Trump 2.0 era. World leaders are gathering for two days to attempt to jumpstart stalled UN climate talks and overcome their differences on wars in the Middle East and Ukraine, as well as extract more tax from the super-rich.
In an apparent nod to the return of China hawk Trump, Xi told British Prime Minister Keir Starmer, “The world is currently entering a new period of turbulence and change.” Xi’s remarks were echoed by German Chancellor Olaf Scholz, who also declared, “the world is changing,” and pushed for the European Union to quickly finalize a blockbuster trade deal with South American countries.
Brazil’s President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva was using his hosting duties to promote left-wing issues close to his heart, including fighting hunger and climate change. At the opening of the summit, he launched the centerpiece of his G20 presidency: a Global Alliance against Poverty and Hunger, which is backed by 81 countries and aims to feed half a million people by 2030. Before the summit, the 79-year-old host, who is attempting to chart a non-aligned course in international affairs, stated that he would try to steer discussions away from the wars in Ukraine and the Middle East. “Because if not, we will not discuss other things which are more important for people that are not at war,” he said.
However, Biden’s decision to allow Ukraine, which Moscow invaded in 2022, to use long-range US missiles to strike inside Russia threatens to escalate a war that Trump has vowed to quickly end. Russia on Monday warned of an “appropriate response” if Russian territory was hit by powerful Western-supplied weapons. Biden used his final G20 appearance to defend Ukraine’s sovereignty and territorial integrity, but Scholz said he would not be following Washington’s lead on long-range armaments. “The powerful weapons we have supplied so far…the long-range artillery, the rocket launchers, cannot be used to penetrate deep into the Russian hinterland,” he stressed.
In a sign of divergences, a Brazilian foreign ministry source told AFP that some countries wanted to renegotiate a draft summit communiqué that had already been agreed upon. “For Brazil and other countries, the text is already finalized, but some countries want to open up some points on wars and climate,” the source explained.
G20 leaders are under pressure to try to rescue UN climate talks in Azerbaijan, which have stalled over the issue of greater climate finance for developing countries. UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres has called on the world’s biggest economies, which account for 80 percent of global emissions, to show “leadership” on this issue in Rio. The UN is seeking $1 trillion a year for developing countries to cope with global warming, but rich countries are stalling, stating they want fast-developing economies like China and the Gulf states to also contribute. This meeting comes in a year marked by a grim array of extreme weather events, including Brazil’s worst wildfire season in over a decade, fueled by a record drought attributed at least partly to climate change.
The summit caps a farewell diplomatic tour by Biden, which included a meeting of Asia-Pacific trading partners in Lima, followed by a visit to the Amazon, marking the first such trip by a sitting US president. Conspicuously absent from the summit is Russian President Vladimir Putin, whose arrest is sought by the International Criminal Court over the Ukraine war.
The summit is also set to discuss ways to ensure that billionaires pay more tax. Lula has reportedly faced resistance from Argentine President Javier Milei, who boasts that Trump is inspired by his low-tax, cost-cutting agenda. A Brazilian foreign ministry source on Monday downplayed the likelihood of Argentina blocking a final statement.
© 2024 AFP
