Chinese Premier Li Qiang told U.S. President Joe Biden at the G20 summit that China's development is an opportunity rather than a challenge for the U.S. and that both countries should strengthen exchanges.
WHITE HOUSE, USA: President Joe Biden heads to the G20 summit in India with big goals and high hopes that the Group of 20 leading rich and developing nations can work together on major global issues, the White House said Tuesday – amid speculation over his health after first lady Jill Biden tested positive for […]
Sep 4: US President Joe Biden has said he is "disappointed" that his Chinese counterpart Xi Jinping plans to skip the upcoming G20 summit in India.
"I am disappointed... but I am going to get to see him," Biden told reporters on Sunday but did not say when th
WASHINGTON: US State Department Spokesperson Matthew Miller said discussing the conflict in Ukraine would be a top priority for US President Joe Biden in the upcoming G20 summit to be held in India next month. On whether anything was going to come out of the G20 Summit as far as the Russia-Ukraine conflict is concerned, […]
The remarks by Wang underscored President Xi Jinping’s meeting with US President Joe Biden at the G20 summit in Bali last month where they discussed a number of hot-button issues, including Taiwan. It was their first in-person talks since 2017.
NOV 17: Mr Zelensky said he had received assurances from his top commanders that "it wasn't our missile".
He also called for Ukrainian officials to be allowed to access the blast site and to be part of the investigation.
His comments came as Nato chief Jens Stoltenberg said Kyiv's air defence missiles were "most likely" to blame.
US President Joe Biden also cast doubt on Mr Zelensky's statement that the missile was not of Ukrainian origin, telling reporters "that's not the evidence".
The missile blast occurred on a farm in Przewodow, just 6km (4 miles) from Poland's border with Ukraine.
Ukrainian air defence systems were activated on Tuesday when Russia launched what is believed to be its biggest wave of missile strikes since its February invasion.
The attack, which occurred during the G20 summit in Indonesia, caused an international outcry, while news of a missile blast inside Nato member Poland's territory raised fears of a dangerous escalation in the war.
But Polish President Andrzej Duda said it was "highly probable" that the missile was launched by Ukrainian anti-aircraft defence.
"From the information that we and our allies have, it was an S-300 rocket made in the Soviet Union, an old rocket and there is no evidence that it was launched by the Russian side," he said.
Mr Stoltenberg told the BBC that he agreed with Poland's assessment that the incident was probably caused by a Ukrainian air defence missile.
"But the main message is that Russia bears the ultimate responsibility, because this would not have happened hadn't Russia waged a brutal war of aggression against Ukraine," he said.
He added that Nato had pledged to supply a "more advanced air defence system" to Ukraine, which is not a member of the alliance but receives extensive military aid.
And Linda Thomas-Greenfield, the US ambassador to the UN, said Russia bore ultimate responsibility for the incident.
"While we still don't know all the facts, we do know one thing - this tragedy would never have happened but for Russia's needless invasion of Ukraine and its recent missile assaults against Ukraine's civilian infrastructure. The UN Charter is clear. Ukraine has every right to defend itself against this barrage," she said at a meeting of the UN Security Council.
Meanwhile, the top US general has warned that an early military victory for Ukraine remains unlikely, despite a series of successful Ukrainian counter-offensives in the east and south.
Last week, Ukraine recaptured Kherson, the only major city to fall to Russia since it started its invasion in February. And in the east, a Ukrainian offensive launched in September has seen Kyiv's forces advance into Donestsk and Luhansk.
"The probability of a Ukrainian military victory - defined as kicking the Russians out of all of Ukraine to include what they claim as Crimea - the probability of that happening any time soon is not high, militarily," Gen Mark Milley - the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff - told reporters at the Pentagon.
But he said recent Russian losses meant a "political solution" was possible.
Gen Milley, who serves as President Biden's top military adviser, said the Ukrainian gains had left Russia "on its back" and observed that its losses could see Moscow agree to some sort of a political withdrawal.
But the top US general did not elaborate as to what that agreement would look like.
Speaking to attendees of the G20 summit in Bali earlier this week, President Zelensky laid out a 10-point peace plan that includes nuclear safety guarantees, the withdrawal of Russian troops from Ukraine's territory, and reparations and justice for "Russia's aggression against Ukraine".
But Moscow's Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said Kyiv's demands were "unrealistic and inadequate". He added that Ukraine "categorically refuses" negotiations with Russia.
Elsewhere, the eastern Donetsk region has seen heavy fighting in recent days, according to Ukrainian presidential adviser Oleksiy Arestovych.
He said Russian troops from Kherson region had now been "redirected" towards Donetsk and Luhansk.
Nov 12: But this week the Indonesian island is hosting what could well be the most strained edition of the G20, or Group of 20 nations.
The annual summit - which includes 19 advanced and emerging economies and the EU - was created after the Asian financial crisis in 1999. And it considers itself something of a superpowers club that manages future crises.
And this time, there are plenty on the discussion block - the Russia-Ukraine war, brewing US-China tensions, soaring inflation, the ever-looming threat of a global recession, nuclear threats from North Korea, and perhaps most alarming of all, a rapidly warming earth.
Amid all this, host and Indonesian President Joko Widodo hopes to play chief dealmaker. Can he do it?
An era of living dangerously
When we spoke ahead of the G20 meeting, Mr Widodo seemed sanguine about what has been described as the most diplomatically delicate and stressful G20 ever.
US President Joe Biden and China's leader Xi Jinping are set to meet on Monday - and the clash of the world's two largest economies has Mr Widodo worried.
"There can be no peace without dialogue," he told me in an exclusive interview at the presidential palace in Jakarta.
"If President Xi Jinping and President Joe Biden can meet and talk, it would be very good for the world, especially if they are able to come to an agreement about how to help the world recover."
Like many Asian countries, Indonesia has benefited from decades of free trade and multilateralism. The US has always been Indonesia's most important global strategic partner, but over the last decade, China has consistently ranked as one of its top two foreign investors.
That's made navigating the relationship between the two giants tricky, to say the least.
An era in which China and the US aren't getting along is a far more dangerous one than Indonesia and other Asian countries have been accustomed to.
Observers say that that growing tensions between Washington and Beijing increase the risk of conflict in the Indo-Pacific.
Meanwhile there are also fears of the possible use of nuclear weapons, either in Ukraine or on the Korean peninsula, where Pyongyang has fired a record number of missiles this year.
"The use of nuclear weapons for any reason, cannot be tolerated," Mr Widodo, also known as Jokowi, says. "The increasing potential for nuclear use is… very dangerous for peace and for world stability."
Getting people to talk
A key issue for Mr Jokowi personally has been food security - particularly as the war in Ukraine has been responsible, in his view, for rising prices, something that directly impacts Indonesia's 275 million people.
He politely termed Russia's invasion of Ukraine a "headache", something that has been "taking up his mind".
Securing a steady and consistent resumption of grain exports is one of the reasons why - ahead of the meeting - he's crisscrossed the globe, meeting with Presidents Vladimir Putin and Volodymyr Zelensky to convince them to come to the meeting.
He had hoped they could talk. "I think it would be great if they [Presidents Vladimir Putin and Volodymyr Zelensky] could sit at the same table - to solve the problems that exist, because the problems that we are dealing with now are on all fronts," Mr Widodo said.
Mr Putin is not coming, Russian diplomats have since said, but Mr Zelensky could attend virtually.
Jokowi's swansong
The G20 is as much Indonesia's coming out party as it is Mr Widodo's swansong - he is in the final stretch of his presidency, and in 2024 he will have to stand down after two terms in power.
When I first met him in 2012, as the then Jakarta governor he was a younger and more idealistic. Branded the first "outsider" to become president in Indonesia's history, he was elected as a man of the people, a democrat's democrat.
Since then he's had to govern a vast archipelago of 17,000 islands, a country that from west to east stretches the distance between London and Baghdad, with hundreds of different languages and ethnicities in between.
It's a challenge I've written about before and over the last few years I've seen Jokowi, man of the people, transform into Jokowi the president. Now a pragmatist, he's become a coalition-builder; someone who knows he has to compromise to not just survive but also thrive. Critics say he is no longer the democrat he used to be. Human rights groups and environmental campaigners have both said that he has consistently put the economy ahead of democratic interests.
Although he remains extremely popular by international standards, his approval ratings have fallen recently, partly because of rising prices.
Yet the country has weathered the current economic slowdown better than others, described by the International Monetary Fund as a "good performer" among regional economies.
It is obvious Mr Widodo is keen to preserve and grow the economic legacy he is leaving behind for Indonesia.
"What we would like to see in 2045 is that Indonesia's golden era will truly be realised," he says towards the end of our conversation. "By 2030, we expect Indonesia to become the number seven economy in the world."
It is a lofty ambition, and one that will resonate with many of his citizens. But it's also one that may be out of his hands.
Indonesia's future depends on a stable global economic environment - something Mr Widodo hopes to come closer to securing at next week's G20 summit.
AUG 19: "Xi Jinping will come. President Putin has also told me he will come," Mr Widodo, also known as Jokowi, told Bloomberg News in an interview.
This is the first confirmation that both leaders will attend the summit.
It will be the first global summit since Russia's invasion of Ukraine and the heightened tensions over Taiwan.
It would also be the first time Mr Xi has left China since January 2020 when the country shut its borders at the start of the Covid pandemic. Since then, he only left the mainland to mark the 25th anniversary of Hong Kong's return to China on July 1 this year.
The November summit will be much-awaited given that US President Joe Biden is also expected to attend - it's unclear if he will meet Mr Putin.
But reports have hinted at the possibility of a face-to-face meeting between Mr Biden and Mr Xi soon - ahead of the summit or on its sidelines.
Relations between Washington and Beijing have soured over human rights, trade and most recently US politician Nancy Pelosi's visit to Taiwan - the historic trip prompted China to conduct nearly a week of military drills around the self-ruled island, which it claims as part of its territory.
The US condemned the drills, which Taiwan described as a rehearsal for an invasion, as "irresponsible".
The summit is also happening in the wake of China and Russia declaring a "no limits" strategic partnership even as much of the world condemns Mr Putin's decision to invade Ukraine.
Washington earlier called for the G20 to remove Russia's membership and withdraw Mr Putin's invitation to the summit over the Ukraine war.
Indonesia, meanwhile, has positioned itself as a peacemaker between the countries.
"The rivalry of the big countries is indeed worrying," Jokowi told Bloomberg News in the interview. "What we want is for this region is to be stable, peaceful, so that we can build economic growth."
Earlier this week, the Indonesian leader said both Russia and Ukraine had accepted his country as a "bridge of peace".
In June, he was the first Asian leader to travel to Kyiv and Moscow to meet with Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky and Mr Putin. During the meetings, he called for an end to the war and solutions to the global food crisis.
