The finance ministers of the Group of 20 countries wrapped up a two-day meeting Saturday in India without issuing a joint statement after China and Russia objected to references that other members wanted to make on Moscow\u2019s aggression in Ukraine.<\/p>\n
With no consensus, India, which holds the G-20 presidency this year, said in what is called a \u201cchair\u2019s summary\u201d that “most members strongly condemned the war in Ukraine and stressed that it is causing immense human suffering and exacerbating existing fragilities in the global economy.”<\/p>\n
Stating that it is essential to uphold international law, the summary said that \u201cthe use of or threat of use of nuclear weapons is inadmissible. The peaceful resolution of conflicts, efforts to address crises, as well as diplomacy and dialogue are vital. Today\u2019s era must not be of war.\u201d<\/p>\n
The declaration noted that references to the war were \u201cagreed to by all member countries except Russia and China.\u201d<\/p>\n
Disagreements surface<\/p>\n
The meeting that began Friday in India\u2019s southern city of Bengaluru, coincided with the first anniversary of Russia\u2019s invasion of Ukraine. The strong differences that emerged were similar to disagreements that have marred several such gatherings since Russia\u2019s invasion of Ukraine a year ago.<\/p>\n
At a G-20 summit held in Bali in November of last year, leaders had bridged their differences by issuing a statement that said that \u201cmost members strongly condemned the war.\u201d<\/p>\n
However, at the meeting of finance ministers held in India, China did not want the word \u201cwar\u201d mentioned in the joint statement, even as the United States and several Western countries insisted on a strong condemnation of the Russian aggression.<\/p>\n
India\u2019s Economic Affairs Secretary Ajay Seth told a news conference the Chinese and Russian representatives did not want to sign up to the wording on Ukraine because “their mandate is to deal with economic and financial issues.”<\/p>\n
“On the other hand, all the other 18 countries felt that the war has implications for the global economy,” he said.<\/p>\n
German finance minister Christian Lindner said that China\u2019s refusal to join the declaration was regrettable. Reuters quoted U.S. Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen telling the news agency that it was \u201cabsolutely necessary\u201d for any statement to condemn Russia.<\/p>\n
The summary issued by India also underlined other divisions among member countries on the war in Ukraine, saying there were \u201cdifferent assessments of the situation and sanctions.”<\/p>\n
At the G-20 meeting, countries such as the U.S., France and Britain said they are announcing stronger sanctions against Moscow as they emphasized the need to isolate Russia for its invasion.<\/p>\n
India, on the other hand, which has decades-old ties with Russia, has not joined the economic sanctions imposed on Russia and continues to maintain strong trade ties with Moscow.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe are looking at India’s interests and importing oil from Russia,\u201d India\u2019s finance minister, Nirmala Sitharaman, told reporters at the end of the meeting.<\/p>\n
Global economic risks persist, says summary<\/p>\n
The G-20, which represents the world\u2019s largest economies, was created after the Asian financial crisis in 1999, and it is seen as a forum that focuses on how to manage global economic crises.<\/p>\n
The summary document issued by India said the global economic outlook had “modestly improved,” although overall growth remains “slow” and risks persist, including elevated inflation, a resurgence of the pandemic, and high debt in many poorer nations.<\/p>\n
The discussions also focused on easing the debt burden of nations \u2014 such as Sri Lanka \u2014 that are reeling under the impact of higher food and oil prices, and the aftermath of the COVID-19 pandemic and the Russian invasion.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The finance ministers of the Group of 20 countries wrapped up a two-day meeting Saturday in India without issuing a joint statement after China and Russia objected to references that other members wanted to make on Moscow\u2019s aggression in Ukraine. With no consensus, India, which holds the G-20 presidency this year, said in what is […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":495,"featured_media":6306,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[141],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-6305","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-america"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/jobbinghood.com\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6305","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/jobbinghood.com\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/jobbinghood.com\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jobbinghood.com\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/495"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jobbinghood.com\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6305"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/jobbinghood.com\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6305\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jobbinghood.com\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/6306"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/jobbinghood.com\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6305"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jobbinghood.com\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6305"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jobbinghood.com\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6305"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}