G20: Lessons from Bali summit and what it implies for India's presidency

India takes on the presidency at a crucial juncture, and the definitions of "success" for the Indian presidency just got updated

What can we learn from the recently concluded summit of the Group of 20 nations in Bali, Indonesia? And what does it imply for the success or otherwise of India’s presidency of the G-20 grouping over the next year?
 

The first and most important achievement of the Bali summit was something that might be taken for granted in most other years: the release of a joint communique. Getting 20 leaders to sign up to one document in today’s sharply divided world is in itself remarkable.
 

Yet this success was not achieved in a vacuum. Indonesian President Joko Widodo staked his country’s considerable political capital on achieving an agreement. And the agreement was the product of careful diplomatic manoeuvring that revealed in essence how the agenda-setting ability of the presidency of the G-20 has a great deal of behind-the-scenes power.

The overall goal of getting the G-20 to a basic agreement had a straightforward corollary: any final document would have to deal with the Ukraine war. The West would be highly unlikely to sign on to any agreement that pretended a land war in Europe did not exist. But, in turn, this mention would need to somehow deal with the fact that the belligerent in that war, the Russian Federation, was itself a member of the G-20 and would need to agree to text that could be read as criticising itself for its invasion. Other countries simply thought that the G-20 was a forum designed to put out fires in the global economy, and not to deal with difficult security issues. This seemed an insurmountable problem to many.
 

One major contribution to the ability to achieve agreement was the decision by the president of the Russian Federation, Vladimir Putin, to stay away from Bali. In his most recent trip to a multilateral summit, to meet central Asian leaders and others from the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) some months ago, Mr Putin was publicly and repeatedly snubbed. Whatever the reason for his absence from the G-20 now, it certainly removed any incentive for Western leaders in need of a boost to engage in side-show grandstanding. That could now be done not at the summit but on their own time. British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak promptly in fact did so, flying to Kiev after the summit for some dramatic visuals of him being greeted by Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy amid flurries of snow.
 

But even so, getting the Ukraine war on the agenda needed some preparation. The Indonesians got the ball rolling by focusing primarily on the impact of the invasion on global food supplies. It was difficult for anyone to deny that global food security was the province of the G-20. Once it was agreed that the food security angle was appropriate for the G-20 to discuss and pronounce on, other aspects of the invasion began to be tacked on slowly. Eventually the agreement said that the leaders “witnessed the war in Ukraine further adversely impact the global economy”; went on to explicitly reference the UN General Assembly’s vote that it “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”; said “most members strongly condemned the war” and the human suffering it had unleashed; admitted there were “other views and different assessments of the situation and sanctions”. The agreement went on to name-check multilateralism, “peace and stability” and then said “the use or threat of use of nuclear weapons is inadmissible”, a clear response to recent Kremlin missile-rattling. And finally it referenced Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s reproof to Mr Putin at the SCO meeting: “Today’s era must not be of war”.
 

Illustration: Ajay Mohanty

It is hard to see this as anything other than a careful retreat by Moscow’s diplomats — and, by extension, their backers in Beijing. Reading Beijing’s motivations is always hard. What is certain is that his officials and negotiators did not want President Xi Jinping to appear isolated and friendless in Bali. The Russians, for their part, said — perhaps for domestic consumption — that the final agreement was “balanced” in that it noted the difference in points of view on the war. The final text was published in an apparently accurate translation on the Russian foreign ministry’s web site in spite of the somewhat harsh terms it used, and the fact that the use of the word “war” for its operations in Ukraine is banned in Russia.
 

The use of Mr Modi’s “not an era of war” formulation is generally seen, even outside New Delhi, as revealing a strong contributory role played by India’s negotiating team and New Delhi’s G-20 sherpa, Amitabh Kant, in achieving this consensus. The Financial Times reported that “negotiators, officials and diplomats” praised both Mr Widodo and the Indian delegation for “tirelessly seeking consensus between Moscow and the western camp”. A somewhat more accurate way of looking at these efforts might be to say that the Indonesians and Indians ensured that the emerging middle powers with the greatest stake in the continuing relevance of the G-20 —Argentina, Mexico, Saudi Arabia and especially Brazil, which will be president after India — remained committed to pushing both the West and Russia towards compromise.
 

So what are the lessons for the next year? First, there is no way that the Indian presidency can expect that hard issues and emergencies, even if security-related, can be kept completely off the agenda. It is much better to do as the Indonesians did and lay the groundwork for dealing with them well in advance. Second, the route to success at the G-20 lies in ensuring that it is driven neither by the West nor by Moscow and Beijing, but by the set of middle powers that have the most to lose if the grouping founders. Third, the power of the presidency to set the agenda and shape discussions cannot be underestimated. Fourth, like-minded allies need to be found: the Indonesians clearly relied on the Indians, and the Indians in turn must take others into confidence.
 

Finally, the importance of the G-20 itself has been underlined. India takes on the presidency at a crucial juncture. The effects of the war in Ukraine on global supply chains and inflation have yet to play themselves out. Trade tensions between the US and China have congealed into open disagreement along multiple frontiers and momentum towards “decoupling”. The relevance of United Nations frameworks for agreement and dispute resolution from the Conference of the Parties on climate change to the World Trade Organization is declining. The G-20 is the only game in town for international agreement, and it has shown that even under the most difficult circumstances it can agree. The definitions of “success” for the Indian presidency just got updated beyond mere agreement.
 

The writer is head of the Economy and Growth Programme at the Observer Research Foundation, New Delhi.