China’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs in a brief statement on its website on Monday said that the Chinese President Xi Jinping will not travel to India for the G20 summit meeting which is scheduled to take place in New Delhi this weekend.

Quoting foreign ministry spokesperson, Mao Ning, the statement said, "At the invitation of the government of the Republic of India, Premier of the State Council Li Qiang will attend the 18th G20 Summit to be held in New Delhi, India, on September 9 and 10."

This comes amidst rising tensions between China and many Asian countries, namely, India, Nepal, The Philippines, Vietnam, Taiwan and Malaysia over the new ‘standard map’ which China released a few days ago claiming territories belonging to the above-mentioned countries.

 Reacting to the news that Xi Jinping will not be attending the G20 summit, United States of America President Joe Biden, told reporters in Rehoboth Beach, Delaware, on Sunday that he is disappointed that Xi Jinping will be skipping the G20 summit in Delhi but he will get to meet Xi.

However, it is not known when Joe Biden will actually be meeting Xi Jinping but it is possible that if not in New Delhi, the two leaders will be having a opportunity to meet each other in November when the US will host the APEC meeting in San Francisco.

Xi Jinping

Joe Biden and Xi Jinping last met and spoke on the sidelines of the G20 summit in Bali, Indonesia but any progress between the two was disrupted when a Chinese spy balloon crossed into the United States of America. The two countries have a range of fundamental disagreements over a range of issues from Taiwan, fueled in part by US lawmakers visiting the island and a trip by Taiwan's president to the US, to Biden's export bans on semiconductor technology, reports about Chinese surveillance from Cuba, and the balloon incident.

In an attempt to normalise ties and to de-escalate, many leaders from the US travelled to China in recent months including Secretary of State Antony Blinken, Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen, climate envoy John Kerry, and Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo. Joe Biden had last week said that he was hoping that Xi attends the G20 summit in India and that the G20 meeting could be the next thing in improving the ties between both these countries.

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