US Secretary of State Anthony Blinken, Lavrov and Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi are set to attend the gathering as Western governments step up concern over the war’s impact on food and fuel costs, prompting the UN to warn for an “unprecedented wave of hunger and destitution”. The gathering will mark the first time Lavrov has met counterparts from countries strongly critical of the war. Analysts question how much can be achieved by the G20, which is riddled with rifts over the handling of the war in Ukraine and its global implications. While Western members have accused Moscow of war crimes and imposed unprecedented sanctions, others – such as China, Indonesia, India and South Africa – have not taken the same critical stance. On Wednesday, Lavrov called on all parties in the world to make efforts to protect international laws, saying: “The world is evolving in a complicated way.” Earlier in the week, China lashed out at the US and NATO, saying Washington “follows international rules only as it sees fit”. Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Zhao Lijian told reporters in Beijing that “the so-called rules-based international order is actually a family rule made by a handful of countries to serve the interest of the US.” Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi with his Indonesian counterpart Retno Marsudi after their arrival in Bali. Photo: Dita Alangkara/EPA Speaking ahead of Thursday’s meeting, German Foreign Ministry spokesman Christian Wagner said it would not be a “normal summit” nor “business as usual”. Joshua Kurlantzick, senior fellow for Southeast Asia at the Council on Foreign Relations, said Indonesian President Joko Widodo, who is hosting the meeting, was likely hoping to avoid a “catastrophic meeting.” There’s such a diverse range of countries and opinions around the table, it’s “almost unmanageable,” Kurlantzick said. “The differences are too wide between some G20 countries to draw conclusions about almost anything. It will simply be a miracle if no one leaves, as happened during the finance ministers’ meeting.” In April, the UK, US and Canada staged a coordinated walkout from the G20 meeting to protest Russia’s invasion. Some Western countries had threatened to boycott the G20 meetings, but the US State Department said on Tuesday that Blinken would be a “full and active participant”. There will be no formal meeting between the US and Lavrov, he said, adding that Russia is not “serious about diplomacy”. “We haven’t seen it yet,” State Department spokesman Ned Price said. “We would like the Russians to give us a reason to meet bilaterally with them, with Foreign Minister Lavrov, but the only thing we’ve seen coming from Moscow is more brutality and aggression against the people and country of Ukraine.” . Blinken will hold separate talks with Wang “to discuss the existence of guardrails” in US-China relations so that competition “does not turn into a miscalculation or a confrontation,” said US Assistant Secretary of State Daniel Krittenbrink. “This will be another opportunity … to convey our expectations of what we would expect China to do and not do in the context of Ukraine,” he said. The global crisis in food and energy costs will feature prominently at the G20 meeting, US officials said. Ukraine is a major supplier of sunflower oil and corn and grows enough wheat to feed 400 million people. However, its exports have been severely disrupted by the Russian invasion and Moscow’s blockade of its sea lanes. Jokowi, as Indonesia’s president is popularly known, recently visited both Ukraine and Russia, calling for measures to allow exports – which Indonesia, like many nations, rely heavily on – to resume. Indonesia maintains an “independent and active” approach to foreign policy and has tried to appear as a neutral actor who could help the negotiations. Jokowi is likely hoping “to show himself as a world leader and just avoid a disastrous meeting,” Kurlantzick said. “He’s probably hoping for some situation where no one walks out of the meeting, avoids a complete disaster, and helps keep the dialogue going between all the players, maybe with a goal of getting Russia to start exporting grain to a lot of countries again, maybe they can also achieve some other secondary goal,” added Kurlantzick. Reuters and The Associated Press contributed to this report
