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India’s high official organising this week’s Group of 20 summit has insisted that settlement on a remaining communique is inside attain, regardless of geopolitical friction that has plagued the build-up and Chinese chief Xi Jinping’s choice to remain away.

Amitabh Kant stated New Delhi aimed to push the fractured discussion board of huge economies in direction of consensus on a leaders’ declaration at subsequent week’s summit, together with language on the Russia-Ukraine battle that has been opposed by Moscow and Beijing.

“We will attempt to bring a consensus amongst all parties, amongst all the G20 parties,” Kant, the summit ‘sherpa’ for Indian prime minister Narendra Modi, informed the Financial Times. “And that is necessary for the future of the G20.”

As this yr’s G20 chair, India will host leaders together with US president Joe Biden on the summit on September 9-10 in New Delhi. Modi’s authorities desires to boost India’s worldwide profile and advance an agenda with a pointy deal with growing international locations’ wants, in its function as a self-styled chief of the worldwide south.

However, in conferences constructing as much as the summit India’s diplomats have didn’t safe consensus for communiques on points starting from multilateral finance to local weather change, after Russia and China led opposition to a paragraph imported from final yr’s Bali summit declaration that deplored Russian “aggression”.

India has issued “Summary and Outcome Documents” after these conferences, spelling out that consensus was not reached.

India’s G20 presidency was additional undermined final week when western officials said Xi wouldn’t be attending the summit and would ship Premier Li Qiang in his place.

Xi’s snub comes towards a backdrop of a border dispute between India and China and an increasing financial, defence, and know-how partnership between New Delhi and Washington that’s largely supposed as a counterbalance to Beijing. Russia’s Vladimir Putin can even not attend.

Kant performed down India-China tensions, saying that China “knows its multilateral responsibilities”.

“China may have bilateral issues with India, but China is a multilateral player,” he stated. “They have been difficult, but we have managed to work with them in the interests of G20.”

Speaking to the FT simply earlier than officers convened on Sunday on the outskirts of Delhi to start thrashing out language for a remaining communique, Kant insisted: “Our objective is that we should have a consensus on all issues, including the Bali para, including geopolitics.”

The G20 “should not be a divided house”, he stated.

Kant’s upbeat remarks distinction with extra gloomy forecasts from some western delegations. Two European officers concerned in preparations for the summit stated there was a robust chance that no joint assertion could be reached given the deadlock over Ukraine, with way more entrenched divisions than eventually yr’s summit in Indonesia.

“A number of developing country members have retreated from language agreed in Bali,” stated one. “It will be a battle [to reach consensus].”

Asked about India’s failure to attain consensus at working group conferences, Kant stated that they had all agreed “on all ambitious developmental issues except the issue of para three of the Bali agreement”. 

Next weekend’s summit will are available in a yr when India’s inhabitants surpassed China’s, and when main economies are struggling to handle the impression of battle in Ukraine on inflation, provide chains, and indebted growing economies.

Modi is urgent different G20 members to confess the African Union as a full G20 member, and India has promoted different points pressed by growing international locations, together with the reform of multilateral monetary establishments.

“The way Indians see it, the G20 is a platform to showcase a part of the world that felt left out, ill-treated and neglected both by the pandemic and the consequences of the Russia-Ukraine conflict,” stated Sujan Chinoy, a former diplomat and director-general of the Manohar Parrikar Institute for Defence Studies and Analyses in Delhi.

Following India’s current unmanned mission to the Moon’s South Pole, the Modi authorities can also be hoping to current the summit to voters as a overseas coverage triumph, forward of a nationwide election anticipated in 2024.