© TASS
The first meeting of finance ministers and central bank CEOs under India’s G20 chairmanship was held in Bangalore on February 24 to 25. The Russian delegation was actively engaged, and its tough stance prevented some points of the planned joint communique from being approved. This refers to paragraphs 3 and 4 of the document to condemn Russia's special military operation in Ukraine. Moscow's position was backed by the Chinese delegation.
Despite agreement on a wide range of measures designed to provide an additional impulse to global economy and financial markets, the meeting results failed to acquire an agreed status. In this regard, Indian Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman told reporters that the communique contained two paragraphs from the Bali Declaration adopted at the group’s Indonesia summit last November.
However, the delegations of Russia and China demanded to exclude them from the final document, because the Bangalore meeting featured different views and assessments of the situation around Ukraine and Western sanctions against Moscow. For this reason, no joint communique was adopted in the follow-up, with the Indian Finance Ministry making a statement with no condemnation of Russia, which the US and its allies insisted upon, as Reuters wrote the day before. By the way, according to Bloomberg, French Finance Minister Bruno Le Maire was particularly "zealous" in this regard, saying that his colleagues should not undermine the stance taken by world leaders who have reached agreements on the issues in Bali.
It is no coincidence that February 25 saw he following message posted by the Russian Foreign Ministry on its website: “Using open blackmail and diktat, introducing absurd interpretations of the situation in Ukraine, the West has yet again undermined the approval of collective decisions.” This pushed Moscow to express regret that G20 activities are “continued to be destabilized by the collective West and used in an anti-Russian, exclusively confrontational way.”
Indeed, the USA, the EU and G7 are not losing momentum in their persistent attempts to isolate Russia, shuffling off the blame for international security and world economy issues on to it. Thus, during the Bangalore meeting on February 24, the United States, Great Britain, Canada and New Zealand imposed new sanctions against Russia, with the very next day witnessing the European Union introduce the tenth package of anti-Russian restrictions.
Moreover, the West is apparently ready go beyond economic sanctions and destroy our country. A statement to that effect came from Russian President Vladimir Putin during his interview with journalist Pavel Zarubin for Moscow. Kremlin. Putin TV program. According to him, the West pursues a single goal of eliminating Russia. "They have one goal of liquidating the former Soviet Union and its main part, the Russian Federation," Putin said, adding that Western plans to split our country do have documentary proof.
In Bangalore, Russia and China were not alone in not willing to condemn Moscow’s special military operation. Some other delegations, in particular from the BRICS that includes Russia, China, Brazil, India and South Africa, were disappointed by ultimatums delivered by the United States and its allies. The dissenters’ key argument was the idea that G20, and even more so the meeting of finance ministers and heads of central banks, should remain an economic forum, without interfering with the security sphere.
By the way, Reuters recently wrote that India was not interested in discussing or supporting any additional sanctions against Russia. Its authorities have never explicitly criticized it for conducting the military operation, and only called for dialogue and diplomacy. Besides, India is going to ban any discussion of related issues at the September G20 summit in New Delhi. Ukraine is not invited to take part, by the way, with the host country apparently considering its presence unnecessary and hardly contributing to the forum’s adequate performance.
China has recently taken a clearer stance on the conflict in Ukraine. Throughout the year, official Beijing has maintained neutrality, without condemning Moscow and only urging a peaceful settlement. But prior to the special operation’s first anniversary, China finally made its bet, presenting a 12-point plan to resolve the issue. Though it looks like a mere set of fundamental truths, the expert community says Beijing pursues a number of specific goals compliant with its national interests.
They are sure the peace plan is not only designed to become another element in strengthening Russian-Chinese relations, but will also help Beijing take a sustainable position on the world stage. The initiative is deemed as not only and not so much a plan to get out of the Ukrainian crisis, but rather as China's fundamental position on restructuring post-war global security architecture.
In this regard, China's proposals to resolve the Ukrainian crisis somewhat resemble Russia’s December initiatives of 2021 that the United States and NATO fiercely denounced. It is hard to escape a couple of conclusions in this regard. First, Beijing and Moscow have a similar view of the future world order, which facilitates their further rapprochement. Second, a recent statement by the US president's National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan, who urged China to just stick to the plan’s first point stipulating "respect for sovereignty and territorial integrity of all the countries," is very similar to the US reaction to the Russian initiative, when Washington started choosing proposals it liked most.
The United States rejected Moscow’s proposals in December 2021. What happened two months later is a well-known thing. In February this year, Washington rejects China's plan as something beneficial to Moscow alone. Beijing will clearly behave a lot more restrained than Russia, with none of existential interests affected so far. But one should not artlessly defy the tendency to aggravate things. China realizes that time has come to act, as the body of yesterday's world hegemon is now drifting by, helplessly…
