The war in Ukraine spreads to the big forum

At the recent meeting of finance ministers and central bank governors of G20 members on the sidelines of the annual spring meeting of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the World Bank (WB), representatives The US and some of its allies attending in person were left out of the meeting room, and some of the online attendees turned off the cameras when the Russian representative spoke both in person and online. For them, isolating Russia is now more important and prioritized than the actual operational efficiency of the G20.

This is just the beginning of the scenario “with Russia, no surname” in the G20. The main drama will be this year’s summit of the G20 group to be held in Bali (Indonesia) next November. Despite pressure from the US and its allies, Indonesia, as the incumbent chair of the G20, is determined to invite all members of the group, including Russia, to attend the most important annual G20 event. So far, the Russian side has left open the possibility that Russian President Vladimir Putin will personally come to Indonesia to attend the conference. At that time, the confrontation between the US and its ally with Russia over the hostilities in Ukraine could escalate to a climax in the G20.

The US and its allies want to exclude Russia from the G20 group as in 2014 they excluded Russia from the G8 group, making the framework of this forum since then only G7. But the G20 is fundamentally different from the G7, and in the G20, the US and its allies, no matter how important they play, still can’t do whatever they want. In the current G20 group, there are many members who do not advocate excluding Russia from the group because of the war in Ukraine, that is, do not join the side of the US and its allies. Three possible scenarios for this year’s G20 summit in Bali are Russian President Vladimir Putin not attending, US President Joe Biden and leaders of the US allies boycotting the event if he does not attend. Putin attended and all attended, but the US and its allies walked out when Mr. Putin spoke.

The G20 is currently not only plagued by hostilities in Ukraine between Russia and Ukraine, but is also being tested in terms of its operational effectiveness and even its continued existence. Once the large forum framework is politicized by the US and its allies to serve their own interests and turn this large forum framework into a battleground for their confrontation with Russia, how can the G20 focuses primarily on dealing with problems whose resolution is seen as the group’s innate historical mission.

Any major group event cannot be successful and the G20 cannot play its great role in cooperation and development, security and stability of the world when there is no internal grouping among members. consensus of views and necessary coordination of actions. Every sign in recent times and every signal for the coming time is extremely harmful to the future of the G20 group of becoming anonymous.

In the group’s history from its inception to the present, the G20 has not been without turbulence and without challenges, but in fact has never faced the risk of disintegration like now. The tragedy of the G20 is that its future fate, at least in terms of operational effectiveness, is made dependent on the outcome of the confrontation between the West and Russia, on which both ends depend. re-introduced and governed the final outcome of the hostilities in Ukraine between Russia and Ukraine.