President Biden shakes palms with Saudi Arabia’s Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman and India’s Prime Minister Narendra Modi after asserting a brand new hall to hyperlink India to the Middle East and Europe.

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President Biden shakes palms with Saudi Arabia’s Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman and India’s Prime Minister Narendra Modi after asserting a brand new hall to hyperlink India to the Middle East and Europe.

Ludovic Marin/POOL/AFP by way of Getty Images

NEW DELHI – President Biden introduced plans for a brand new rail and transport hall that may join India, the Middle East and Europe — a long-term push to enhance the way in which items, vitality and data strikes throughout borders, that notably doesn’t contain China.

Biden made the announcement with different world leaders on the G20 — a summit that China’s President Xi Jinping selected to skip this yr. Afterward, Biden clutched palms with India’s Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman to mark the second.

It was one in every of a number of ways in which Biden is in search of to counter the inroads China has made world wide by means of its Belt and Road Initiative and different growth financing. At the G20, the United States and Europe additionally announced new investments in a rail line that may join Angola with the Democratic Republic of Congo and Zambia.

“This is a game-changing regional investment. And both of these are huge, huge steps forward, but they’re far from the only ones. We’re continuing to make big investments in infrastructure around the world,” Biden mentioned.

India’s Prime Minister Narendra Modi reveals a mural of the Konark Sun temple wheel to President Biden on the G20 summit in New Delhi.

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India’s Prime Minister Narendra Modi reveals a mural of the Konark Sun temple wheel to President Biden on the G20 summit in New Delhi.

Ludovic Marin/POOL/AFP by way of Getty Images

Xi skipped the summit. That’s created a gap

The summit has been a prime precedence for Modi, a pacesetter who Biden has sought to carry nearer as a counterbalance to China within the Indo-Pacific area.

Images of Modi’s state go to to Washington in June graced an enormous video billboard close to the airport the place Air Force One landed, and G20 posters that includes Modi have been plastered across the capital. Modi declared a three-day public vacation for the G20, and the streets across the summit have been naked, with the general public stored removed from the occasions.

Leaders from China, the world’s second-largest economic system, and Russia — a long-time companion of India — opted to not attend.

“I think for our Indian partners, there is substantial disappointment that they’re not here — and gratitude that we are,” mentioned Kurt Campbell, Biden’s prime National Security Council adviser on the Indo-Pacific area.

Journalists have additionally been tightly restricted from occasions, drawing consideration to India’s observe document on press freedom, and highlighting a problem for Biden as he tries to develop a better relationship with leaders who do not totally embrace human rights.

Campbell mentioned it is one thing that Biden chooses to boost behind closed doorways.

“My experience is that the president is direct, open and does not shy from hard challenges. But what makes it effective is that he begins from a platform of trust and confidence, and I believe that allows his interlocutors to hear sometimes challenging issues more effectively,” Campbell informed reporters.

President Biden attends at session on the G20 in New Delhi. India’s Prime Minister Narendra Modi has used the pre-colonial Hindi title for his nation on his nameplate throughout the summit.

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President Biden attends at session on the G20 in New Delhi. India’s Prime Minister Narendra Modi has used the pre-colonial Hindi title for his nation on his nameplate throughout the summit.

Evelyn Hockstein/POOL/AFP by way of Getty Images

Biden additionally labored to beef up the World Bank

Biden has additionally used the G20 to work with different members of the World Bank to attempt to make it a extra enticing choice to Chinese financing, which his nationwide safety adviser Jake Sullivan has described as “coercive” and “unsustainable” as a result of it has left some international locations in Asia and Africa with money owed they can’t repay.

Biden has asked Congress for greater than $2 billion for the World Bank, an funding the White House says would leverage greater than $25 billion in lending.

He has additionally championed a G7 initiative generally known as the Partnership for Global Infrastructure and Investment, or PGII, which has related goals.

The objective is to not power creating international locations to decide on between China and the West, however reasonably to offer them extra enticing choices, the White House says.

“We think [it] has real appeal for countries in regions that are underserved by by infrastructure that that have these enormous gaps that need to be filled,” Jon Finer, Biden’s deputy nationwide safety adviser, informed reporters.