President Joe Biden will arrive Friday at the G20 Summit in India on a mission to boost climate and infrastructure lending to developing economies, part of a broader effort by the United States and its allies to counter China's rising influence in Africa and Latin America.
Biden asked Congress ahead of the summit to approve $3.3 billion for World Bank and International Monetary Fund financing to poorer countries in order to offer an alternative to lending from Beijing. China has long offered developing countries financing on terms that Washington argues most benefit Beijing, often in exchange for access to valuable natural resources.
Increased World Bank lending will help create a "credible alternative to the People's Republic of China's (PRC) coercive and unsustainable lending and infrastructure projects," the White House said.
Biden will use the summit to call for debt relief for developing countries and other reforms to the World Bank and other international lending institutions, National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan said.
"That's one of our main focuses heading into the G20, delivering on an agenda fundamentally reshaping and scaling up the multilateral development banks, especially the World Bank and the IMF," Sullivan told reporters in a preview of the summit.
President Xi Jinping of China and President Vladimir Putin of Russia both plan to skip the G20 Summit, instead sending their top diplomats to the event. Nevertheless, tensions between China, Russia and the West will loom large over the gathering of leaders from the world's major economies.
Putin's absence from the summit was not unexpected. He is facing an arrest warrant on war crimes charges by the International Criminal Court and has rarely left Russia since ordering the invasion of Ukraine over a year and a half ago. But Xi's decision not to attend the G20 summit was widely seen as a snub to India and its Prime Minister Narendra Modi.
Earlier this week, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Mao Ning denied that Xi's absence had any bearing on tensions between Beijing and New Delhi, whose hosting of the G20 she said China supports. Russia too has sought to utilize the event to strengthen ties with India.
Modi, for his part, has used the summit to herald India's transformation into a developed economy straddling the divide between wealthy nations and the less affluent non-Western world.
As the host country for the summit, India is welcoming the African Union -- a coalition of dozens of nations in Africa -- as a permanent member of the G20. The summit agenda will focus heavily on climate change, food security and other global challenges that disproportionately impact the Global South.
"Modi has taken the G20 Summit and turned it into this national extravaganza. It's a very shrewd usage of the G20 platform and China has watched this happen," Manjari Chatterjee Miller, a senior fellow for India, Pakistan, and South Asia at the Council on Foreign Relations told Newsweek.
By not attending the summit, Miller said, Xi is trying to send the message that "India is not the galvanizing force it thinks it is."
Still, Miller and others said India is well positioned to serve as a new international powerbroker.
"This is an opportunity for India to burnish its credentials not only as a leading power but also as a bridging power" between the West and Global South, Sameer Lalwani, a senior expert on South Asia at the United States Institute of Peace, told Newsweek.
With a population of 1.4 billion, India is the most populous country in the world as well as the biggest democracy. In a symbol of its unique, world-spanning status, India belongs to The Quad -- an Indo-Pacific security group that also includes Australia, Japan and the U.S. -- as well as BRICS, a growing bloc of leading non-Western economies that also includes Brazil, Russia, China and South Africa.
India's rising status on the world stage has been bolstered by deepening ties to the U.S. under Biden.
Biden hosted a state visit for Modi at the White House in June where the leaders announced new agreements between the two countries on defense, science, technology, trade and other issues.
The deals reflected a realization by the administration that cooperation with India can help the U.S. compete with China in areas like artificial intelligence, said Prashant Bhuyan, the founder and CEO of Accrete, a U.S. defense contractor and dual-use AI company.
"The U.S. has a challenge [in China] and that's one of the reasons why it's looking to foster a fresh alliance with India," Bhuyan told Newsweek.
India's emergence as a rising power will be on full display in New Delhi. But while hosting the G20 Summit is a watershed moment for the country, the summit is also drawing fresh attention to India's democratic backsliding and religious tensions.
Modi and his ruling BJP Party have faced growing backlash over allegations of stoking ethnic and religious divisions that have led to violent clashes in recent months in the northeast Indian state of Manipur, along the border with Myanmar. Modi faced questions over India's domestic political problems during his recent visit to the White House.
The summit will also force an awkward reckoning for India over Russia's invasion of Ukraine. India has said it supports Ukraine but has not forcefully condemned Russia over the war out of concern for its relationship with Moscow. India relies on Russia for energy and it is still largely dependent on Russian technology for its weapons systems.
Still, Sullivan argued the summit would showcase areas of agreement between the U.S. and its allies.
"We hope this G20 Summit will show that the world's major economies can work together even in challenging times," Sullivan said.
Uncommon Knowledge
Newsweek is committed to challenging conventional wisdom and finding connections in the search for common ground.
Newsweek is committed to challenging conventional wisdom and finding connections in the search for common ground.
About the writer
Daniel Bush is a White House Correspondent for Newsweek. He reports on President Biden, national politics and foreign affairs. Biden ... Read more
