Washington DC: India and the US will reinforce the strong strategic partnership forged during the state visit of Prime Minister Narendra Modi to the US, when US President Joe Biden travels to India for the G-20 summit and a bilateral Indo-US summit in Delhi from September 7-10.
President Joseph R. Biden, Jr. will travel to New Delhi, India, from September 7-10 to attend the G20 Leaders’ Summit. President Biden and G20 partners will discuss a range of joint efforts to tackle global issues, including the clean energy transition and combatting climate change, mitigating the economic and social impacts of Putin’s war in Ukraine, and increasing the capacity of multilateral development banks, including the World Bank, to better fight poverty, including by addressing global challenges,” White House said in a statement.
For New Delhi this will be its biggest diplomatic event and India’s muscular diplomatic power play will be a centrepiece for the summit.
Even though there will be close to two dozen world leaders, Prime Minister Narendra Modi will set aside a special bilateral segment with US President Joe Biden combining both strategic and ceremonial elements during his visit to Delhi.
“While in New Delhi, President Biden will also commend Prime Minister Modi’s leadership of the G20 and reaffirm the U.S. commitment to the G20 as the premier forum of economic cooperation, including by hosting it in 2026.”
While differences on the Ukraine war will prevent a joint G-20 communique many diplomatic observers believe that the New Delhi summit presents an opportunity for PM Modi to play a peacemaker between Biden and Putin to end the war in Ukraine.
For Biden and Modi, the New Delhi summit will also provide an opportunity to address the growing threat from China to their strategic and economic interests and also the situation in the Indo-Pacific.
The presence of Chinese President Xi Jinping will also allow some frank talk on some pull asides during the leaders’ retreat.
The Delhi summit will also be held under an extremely tight security blanket and much of New Delhi will be out of bounds during the summit.
