China’s President Xi Jinping will be absent from this year’s G20 for the first time since 2012 – a win for the leadership of his largest neighbour.
What in the World, a free weekly newsletter from our foreign correspondents, is sent every Thursday. Below is an excerpt. Sign up to get the whole newsletterThe arrivals hall at Delhi airport is decked out in G20 billboards flashing pink, yellow and blue. “People progress,” they say. “Let us work together for a new paradigm of human centric cooperation.” At the centre of them all is a beaming Narendra Modi, India’s prime minister and the country’s most powerful politician in a generation.
“Concerns about ensuring security smooth passage are legitimate. But to shut down all retail businesses in the zone is going a bit too far and smacks of Potemkin village prep,” India’sDespite the backlash, the Indian government, like all G20 hosts before it, remains determined to plaster over any cracks in its artifice before the VIP jets and travelling media packs touch down on Friday.
The G20 lotus logo bears a striking resemblance to that of Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s Bharatiya Janata Party.The G20’s rotational presidency, which means each member country hosts the event once every 20 years, could not have come at a more fortunate time for Modi who is preparing to face an election next year for a parliament in which he already controls 353 of 543 seats.
Modi has made no secret of his use of the international forum to advance his nationalistic and domestic political interests. Last week he urged followers on X, formerly known as Twitter, to tweet in Sanskrit about the G20. The Indian leader wants to see the ancient language revived as part of his growing nationalist campaign. This week he went further by replacing the name India with its ancient word Bharat in dinner invitations sent to guests of the G20.
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