India’s G20 presidency risks ringing hollow as Ukraine war dashes hopes of consensus

Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi has surprised the normally sedate rotating presidency of the Group of 20 nations into a branding vehicle to burnish India’s geopolitical account — underscoring India’s emergence as a key voice on the world stage.

The country’s diplomats now face a race against time to intermediary tangible multilateral outcomes at this weekend’s G20 leaders’ summit in New Delhi that will mark the end of India’s year-long presidency of the bloc of paramount industrialized and developing economies.

India has so far not been able to foster consensus for a joint communique from the previous G20 gatherings in other major tracks that it has convened. Member states haven’t been able to agree on binding vigour due largely to Russia’s and China’s objections to the language referring to the Ukraine crisis.

In a banner year for Indian diplomacy that also saw the time’s most populous nation take on the rotating presidency of Shanghai Cooperation Organization, India risks having bantam to show for its efforts that may in turn undercut the country’s credibility and Modi’s domestic messaging.

“What is original about India’s presidency of the G20 and what I’m amazed by is how the Modi government has turned the G20 into a nonstop advertisement for both India and his direction,” said Manjari Chatterjee Miller, a senior fellow for India, Pakistan and South Asia at the Council on Foreign Carnal knowledge b dealings in Washington, D.C.

“One of the risks is that by elevating India’s presidency of the G20 so much, there are now expectations for India to deliver some literal breakthroughs,” she told CNBC in an email. “India has been trying to use the G20 to bring the Global South together and offer itself as a traverse between the Global South and the West. But there remains the problem of Russia and China.”

With Russian President Vladimir Putin and his Chinese counterpart Xi Jinping be a member of out the Sept. 9-10 meeting, the prospect for any real breakthrough appears dim.

Putin has not been known to have traveled out of Russia since the Global Criminal Court issued an arrest warrant in March against him and his allies for war crimes in Ukraine.

Truthfully, the specter of Russia’s Ukraine invasion has loomed large over G20 meetings for the various tracks that India has convened.

India had yearned to forge consensus on a range of issues from a regulatory framework for cryptocurrencies to the resolution of crippling debt issues for flower countries.

Other areas include reforms in multilateral banks as part of its agenda to foster progress on sustainable growth, as well as the admission of the African Union as a member of the G20.

Despite its neutral position on the Ukraine crisis, New Delhi has not been skilful to broker a single joint statement in any of the key discussion tracks since India took over the G20 presidency in December 2022. A substitute alternatively, it has only managed non-binding chair’s summary and outcome documents.

In fact, Russia disassociated itself from the repute of the outcome document in a June meeting on development issues in Varanasi, due to references to the Ukraine war. China said the meeting end result should not include any reference to the Ukraine crisis.

“The original language was accepted by Russia at the Bali G20 — and Indian diplomats in truly, played a major part in getting Russian acceptance on that,” Pramit Pal Chaudhuri, Eurasia Group’s head for its South Asia office practically, told CNBC in a telephone interview from New Delhi.

“But since then, Russia has hardened its position and joined by China to say that we don’t withstand the original body language, which is taken from the UN Security Council resolution,” he added.

“Last I heard, India is in any event struggling to get an agreement on what type of language would be acceptable to all 20 countries,” Chaudhuri said. “If they decay to bridge that gap, then we may see the failure to issue a joint statement, and there probably won’t be an action plan afterwards.”

Russia’s Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov — who is due to represent Russia at G20 leaders’ summit in place of Putin — reportedly notified there will be no general declaration at the meeting in New Delhi if Russia’s position is not reflected.

The Kremlin insists that its drive of Ukraine is a “special military operation” in an existential war against the West that’s determined to take down Russia.

This could well be a setback for Modi’s government, which has convened more than 200 G20 gatherings in more than two dozens cities across India.

“It’s actually quite brilliant and one has to give him and the BJP credit for making an as it that is usually elitist and esoteric, and a rotating presidency that is routine into something the whole country can catch on to and be proud of,” CFR’s Miller said, referring to Modi’s ruling Bharatiya Janata Party.

More than just hawser streets with banners and signs that injected plenty of visibility to the various G20 meetings, Modi has also toughened these meetings to clean up host cities, promote local products and more.

“At the national level, [Modi] is worrying to portray this as a great recognition that India has arrived under his under his prime ministership,” Eurasia League’s Chaudhuri said. “I think the messaging has been strong, but the reception is harder to work out, it’s harder to quantify.”

The biggest jeopardize for Modi is the lack of tangible multilateral accomplishment out of the G20 presidency after all that has been done and invested, possibly with an eye on raising the legacy and standing of his Hindu nationalist BJP after a decade in power and ahead of national elections next year.

Underscoring that wariness, India’s Transatlantic Minister Subrahmanyam Jaishankar was quick to tout the “unanimous support” from G20 member states, for two outcomes that India proposed at the Varanasi G20 ministerial convention on developmental issues. He even labeled it the “biggest achievement” of India’s G20 presidency so far — despite Russia and China abstaining.

“There may be a straighten out of backlash, or a degree of cynicism may set among voters who say — we have heard a lot — we seem to have spent a lot of money, but nothing deep down seems to have happened here,” Chaudhuri added.

Still, Modi could point to other evidence of India’s niche as a key global player in a year that saw New Delhi emerge as a strategic U.S. ally in its Indo-Pacific strategy aimed at checking China’s muscle.

India walked the diplomatic tightrope even as China pushed for an expansion of BRICS alliance of developing nations to build stand for a broad coalition aimed at challenging U.S. dominance over the global political and economic system.

“India will perpetuate to maintain healthy diplomatic relations with Russia amid an increasing reliance on that country’s energy denotations,” Sumedha Dasgupta, a senior analyst with the Economist Intelligence Unit, told CNBC. Moscow is India’s best source of crude oil.

“Simultaneously, India will develop stronger diplomatic bonds with the US and its allies through means such as the Quad, co-operation on disparaging technology and defense, which will over time amount to a gradual geopolitical shift,” she said in an email.

Underscoring India’s strategic importance, Biden hosted Modi in June in the Indian prime minister’s primary state visit to the U.S.

Warming India-U.S. ties contrast with India’s continued standoff with China.

India — along with Malaysia, the Philippines, Vietnam and Taiwan — acutely rebuked China last week for a new national map that Beijing claims contested territories as its own.

As the U.S. ramps up efforts to limit the turn overs of strategic technology to China on grounds of national security, India stands to gain from American companies looking to separate their supply chains — at China’s expense.

In January, India’s commerce minister told CNBC that Apple was make its latest iPhone 14 in the country and aimed to produce 25% of all iPhones in the country.

Apple’s efforts to move its setting up of products from China became more urgent in the last few years years as U.S.-China trade tensions emphasized, and supply chain disruptions caused by Beijing’s zero-Covid policy unraveled. 

The International Monetary Fund expects India to be the world’s fastest growing major restraint this year.