A G20 summit haunted by those absent

The final declaration also achieves the feat of condemning the use of force to conquer territories without ever mentioning Russia and Ukraine. To conceive this piece of diplomatic bravery, it still took more than 200 hours of negotiations, 300 bilateral meetings and 15 successive versions of the compromise. The Russian Minister of Foreign Affairs, Sergei Lavrov, naturally welcomed this, happy that we did not have “Ukrainianized“the summit, while in kyiv, it was estimated that the G20”has nothing to be proud of“.

The Kremlin finds satisfaction where it can, knowing that what will be remembered above all from this summit is the absence of Vladimir Putin and Xi Jinping, the two heads of state associated with the aggression against Ukraine. This absence left plenty of room for Joe Biden, who was thus able to quietly push his pawns with the emerging powers that Beijing and Moscow are trying to court; and first of all with the host country, India, with which the United States is pursuing a spectacular rapprochement.

In the process, the American president began a visit to Vietnam on Sunday. Undoubtedly the approach no longer has the sensational character of Bill Clinton’s historic trip, which turned the page on the war in November 2000, or the symbolic dimension of Barack Obama’s stay, six years later. However, the objective this time is to conclude an “extended strategic partnership” between Hanoi and Washington. A considerable leap forward between two enemies that we once believed to be irreconcilable, and which resonates even more when we remember that the Chinese and Vietnamese flattered themselves, at the time of the struggle against imperialism, of being “as close as lips and teeth“.