G20 meet: Japan FM to skip, China to attend

Japanese Foreign Minister Yoshimasa Hayashi will not be able to attend the high-profile meeting due to parliamentary sessions to be held at the same time in his country.

Japan's Foreign Minister is most probably going to skip the G-20 Foreign Ministers' meeting in India over domestic reasons while his Chinese counterpart will be taking part in the event, scheduled to take place on March 1-2, 2023 in New Delhi.

Why is Japan not sending its Foreign Minister?

Japanese Foreign Minister Yoshimasa Hayashi is unlikely to attend the high-profile meeting due to parliamentary sessions to be held at the same time in his country, according to a report in Bloomberg, while a junior minister is instead likely to be taking part in the event.

However, the decision has met with negative response from Japan lawmakers as they claim that the government has lost an opportunity to showcase leadership with the country preparing to host the G7 summit in May. "It's a regrettable decision that means forfeiting a chance to emphasize the importance of the rule of law to the developing countries that take part in G-20," Goshi Hosono, a ruling Liberal Democratic Party lawmaker, said on Twitter.

On the other hand, Chinese Foreign Minister Qin Gang will be taking part in the meeting, the Foreign Ministry announced on Tuesday. Qin's visit to India will be the first by the Chinese Foreign Minister after his predecessor Wang Yi's visit to New Delhi in 2019 to attend the Special Representatives' dialogue on the border mechanism.

Qin will attend the meeting on March 2 at the invitation of his Indian counterpart Dr. S. Jaishankar, the announcement said. Relations between the two countries have strained since the eastern Ladakh military standoff in May 2020 and the two nations have since held 18 high-level military commanders' talks to resolve the standoff.

Who all will attend the meet

The G20 meeting will be attended by Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken and UK Foreign Secretary James Cleverly. In all, representatives of 40 countries, including non-G20 members invited by India, and multilateral organisations, will attend.

The G20 members represent around 85 percent of the global GDP, over 75 per cent of the global trade and about two-thirds of the world population. The member countries include Argentina, Australia, Brazil, Canada, China, France, Germany, India, Indonesia, Italy, Japan, South Korea, Mexico, Russia, Saudi Arabia, South Africa, Turkey, the UK and the US.