Biden kicks off his G20 by cozying up to his pals Trudeau and Sunak – with Saudi Crown Prince MBS waiting nearby and Xi, Putin at home

President Joe Biden took full advantage of the Chinese and Russian leaders’ decision to skip this weekend’s G20 leaders’ summit in New Delhi, India, happily handing over his closest friends on the world stage.

Biden arrived at the Bharat Mandapam Convention Center on Saturday morning and was greeted by the host, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi, shaking and holding Modi’s hand as he entered the complex.

Biden was spotted laughing with British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak and spent some time with Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau as the opening session began.

The leaders of Australia, the Netherlands, Germany and Nigeria also greeted Biden. Indonesian President Joko Widodo shared a long hug with Biden before taking his seat.

The president sat four seats away from Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, as the White House was coy about whether the two would meet on the sidelines of the summit.

White House officials spent the morning and Friday evening chastising China for being truant.

Both Chinese President Xi Jinping and Russian President Vladimir Putin are not attending the meeting of the world’s top economies.

Putin has sent Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov in his place because he is wanted by the International Criminal Court for war crimes.

Deputy National Security Advisor Jon Finer said Saturday morning that “it’s really the Chinese government’s job to explain why a leader would or wouldn’t participate.”

It was unclear whether Modi expressed dismay over Xi and Putin’s absence when he met Biden on Friday evening – the first meeting of the US president’s trip – but Kurt Campbell, the National Security Council’s coordinator for the Indo-Pacific, told reporters afterwards he felt that the Indians were angry.

“I think it is a disappointment for India that both Russia and China are not there,” he told reporters late on Friday.

“And the fact that the United States, probably the country that India has invested the most in deepening and developing a relationship, showed up and is involved in every major initiative that will be rolled out in the coming days was both reassuring and reassuring. gratifying for the Indian interlocutors and that has not escaped our attention,” he also said.

Last week, China and India fell into a diplomatic spat over an “official map” released by China that claimed areas along the Himalayas that Indian officials say are theirs.

Xi sent Prime Minister Li Qiang in his place.

The president arrived in India on Friday evening, where he was greeted by the US ambassador to India, Eric Garcetti, the former mayor of Los Angeles, and his daughter Maya.

Biden leaned down to talk to Maya and was then treated to a short dance number from an Indian dance troupe set on a makeshift stage in front of the airport terminal.

They danced to a version of Ed Sheeran’s Shape of You.

Biden then drove in a motorcade to Modi’s home, where American journalists waited outside in vans – without access to the bathroom.

Access to the press was one of the nagging issues at the summit, which took place in the capital of the so-called “world’s largest democracy.”

During the flight there, National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan pointed to the unique location where Biden and Modi’s first meeting of the summit took place.

“This meeting will take place at the Prime Minister’s residence,” Sullivan told reporters aboard Air Force One. “So it’s unusual in that respect.”

Still, he said the White House pressured the Indian government for access to the press — and was denied.

Afterwards, Campbell called India a “work in progress” on several democratic freedoms, including press freedom.

“And I think the key here is that we maintain a respectful dialogue and approach some challenges with the level of humility given the challenges that we also face in our own country,” Campbell said.

On Saturday, only two American journalists – a writer and a photographer – were given access to the opening session of the G20.

While Modi spoke in Hindi, the American reporter was not provided with the device that allows simultaneous interpretation.

Finer said on Saturday that Biden raised unspecified democracy issues during his conversation with Modi.

Finer had been asked whether Biden had taken Modi to task for bulldozing slums in the run-up to the summit, leaving large numbers of poor people homeless in a bid to beautify the city for visiting world leaders.

City officials also paid out street dogs and monkeys ahead of the summit.

The city’s residents were told to take vacations, leaving streets empty and shops closed, paving the way for motorcades to zoom down traffic-less roads.

On Saturday’s agenda, the White House is poised to tout a new shipping and rail corridor project it calls “groundbreaking” with the prospects of bringing greater stability to the turbulent Middle East region by boosting regional economies more closely linked.

The project is a new rail transport corridor that would include the US, India, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates and the European Union – although it is not exactly ‘shovel-ready’, with leaders set to announce only a ‘memorandum of understanding’. ‘ am working on it.

Finer told reporters traveling in New Delhi on Saturday that this could help reduce temperatures due to the “turbulence and insecurity” coming from the Middle East.

“It will be a clear demonstration of a new model that President Biden has pioneered for more transparent and sustainably sustainable development, high-quality, sustainable infrastructure that fills a damaged gap and enables greater prosperity and better connectivity for key regions across the world.” world,” he said. .

The inclusion of Saudi Arabia could create the right conditions for Biden and MBS to speak.

There may be a ‘mega deal’ on the table between Saudi Arabia and the US, which could lead to Saudi Arabia and Israel normalizing relations.

It would represent a historic breakthrough for peace in the Middle East.

Civil servants told Axios last month that the government is seeking to complete its diplomatic efforts before the 2024 presidential election heats up.

While these sources pointed to how much of Biden’s time his re-election campaign will consume, the Saudi relationship is unpopular among parts of the US.

In addition to the country’s poor treatment of women, there was the murder of Washington Post columnist Jamal Khashoggi.

And the timing of an MBS meeting could also be tricky for Biden — who has decided to skip the traditional Sept. 11 ceremonies to mark the anniversary of Monday’s terror attacks in Alaska on his way home from India and Vietnam.

For years, September 11 families have hunted the Saudi government, as 15 of the 19 terrorist hijackers were Saudis.