HONG KONG, August 20. /TASS/. Russian President Vladimir Putin and Chinese leader Xi Jinping may use their appearance at the upcoming G20 summit in Bali to demonstrate their defiance against the rules being dictated by the West and reaffirm their important role internationally, the China South Morning Post said on Saturday.
"The physical presence of the two leaders [at the summit] can also be read as a form of their resistance to Western domination in the system of international politics," the newspaper quoted Nur Rachmat Yuliantoro, an international relations lecturer at Gadjah Mada University in Indonesia, as saying.
He assumes "Xi will use this event to state directly Beijing’s position on various political, economic and security issues in the world today."
If the Chinese leader arrives in Bali, that will be his first foreign trip since the pandemic started. "Xi’s decision is intended to reflect a position of strength and openness to deepening and resuming communication [with the world at large] at levels that had existed prior to the pandemic," Brian Wong, a geopolitical strategist and founder of the Oxford Political Review, told the paper.
"Putin’s decision [to potentially visit Bali], on the other hand, is even more symbolically charged - it is an attempt on the part of a besieged Russia to demonstrate that it still has a key say and stake in the international order," the newspaper quoted the analyst as saying. According to Chinese political scientist Pang Zhongying, "Western countries had demanded [Indonesia] disinvite Russia, but Indonesia resisted the pressure, so this is an opportunity for Russia."
In an interview with Bloomberg on Thursday, Indonesian President Joko Widodo said the leaders of Russia and China were planning to participate in the summit in person. Neither the Kremlin, no the Chinese Foreign Ministry has yet officially confirmed these plans.