 Hello and welcome to NewsClick. We have with us Siddharth Roy and he is reporting from Bali on what is happening on the first day of the G20 summit. Siddharth, we had a discussion yesterday and you said that the hopes of a successful Bali are pretty dim. We had a meeting with President Biden and President Xi and question is, did you see something coming out of it or was it just saying that we will now agree to disagree and we will at least keep the communications open, which had actually snapped after Nancy Pelosi's visit to Taiwan. So just to keep it limited to the meeting between President Biden and Xi Jinping, that's a positive, most certainly a positive in the limited scope that we then coming out of the meeting and saying that no, there is no threat of an imminent war is great, especially in our times when we already have one war going on. And the truth is that neither does the world need another war nor can the US taxpayers afford another one. So good for everyone that they've come out with a statement. So this is a partial negation of us feeling that it's all hope lost. But yet it's not all hopes up either. I interviewed the US folks person and I actually asked him that, how is it that you decided that you're okay talking to Xi Jinping with whom you had a massive standoff? But why would you not repeat the same thing with Russia? But even then if you go through the interview, it doesn't really give us a point of answer. So no, we don't really see that. There's like a continuance of hope from Biden's Xi meeting. Also importantly, the list of bilateral meetings which Narendra Modi will be having, that's out. Anybody on social media could check it. The list does not include a bilateral meeting with the US, nor with China at the moment. So we've already been, India's already has whatever good relations with the France and UK and whatever. Now the two main players outside of India, the two main players of the G20, China and US, why aren't they talking to India? That's a question to be asked. If there has really been a thaw and things are all hunky dory, why is there no bilateral talk? So now I'm not pinning my hopes to the extent that I would like. Well, even with the Biden and Xi's meeting, the interesting part of it is the techno war, the technical war, the chip war are not discussed, the financial wars are not discussed. All they have really said, well, Taiwan doesn't seem to be heading for a war right now. And we have started to discuss other bilateral issues. So a resumption of normal talking and not really anything more than that, which had snapped with the Pelosi visit. So that seems to be the positive. Yes, any positive in today's world is a positive. So let's be thankful for small mercy, so to say. But the other part of it, and I had a discussion with Ambassador Bhadrakumar last night, he said G20 was formed to be essentially a place where countries could come together, major economies could come together and it was formed really in 2007-2008 crisis. When G7 thought that they could involve others and there would be a global consensus led by the G20, now that period seems to be over. They don't see G20 as a platform. And whatever decisions they need to take regarding the global issues, they seem to be thinking about only G7. So both on Ukraine and on China-Taiwan issues, we of course do not see any negotiations take place in China-Taiwan and US. There is a discussions have started which had snapped completely. But nevertheless on chip war, which is the tech war between China and the United States, nothing really came out of the Biden-Chi meeting. And Ukraine is not on the agenda very clearly in G20. Is that what you get from what you are hearing? Is anybody willing to take an initiative which they think might have some traction? On Ukraine, no. Like I've heard nothing being mentioned about Ukraine. There are general statements which is only goes to the maximum extent of saying, oh, people should talk, there shouldn't be war. But anything concrete about it? No. So neither any talk about NATO and Russia, no discussion on that or on the issue about energy war which is the other war which is going on against Russia. In fact, the oil price, the bar that is supposed to be that there is going to be an upper bar beyond which they can't sell. And India is on the firing line on that one saying that you guys are violating buying Russian oil and so on. And on those issues, we don't seem to see G20 as any platform for trying to bring about a better atmosphere in terms of war and the economy. Because economies or countries are getting hit by the economic war which one hand is taking place between NATO, European Union, United States and Russia. On the other hand, the techno-technical war, the chip wars, also the trade war between the United States and China. On those fronts, you don't see G20 being able to take any initiative. Is that what you mean? Well, to be the best way to put this would be that yesterday when I made my points, I said that the entire G20 cannot be all about Russia and Ukraine. But that doesn't mean that there need not be absolutely any mention of it. The reason being that in trying to get around that blockade, which is laudable, let's get around what we can't and let's achieve what we can. But is it as simple as that? Perhaps not. We don't see a single mention of Russia holding a bilateral talk with anybody. At least nothing is out there in the open press. So it's still a question. Has Russia been completely isolated at G20? I'm not so sure, if that's true. But does it, to answer your question, does it undermine the authority of G20 if it comes to things like this? By all means, yes. Even if not India and Indonesia. Is the G20 really going to survive without Russia in it? Is the UN Security Council going to survive with any authority or any respect without Russia in it? What are we going to do there? So you cannot go from like making everything about Russia and Ukraine to completely not mentioning Russia and having a complete blackout. So we are at a catch 22 here. Or rather actually we are at a proffering from the west, which is two extreme binaries. We can have neither of these. Also the interesting part is what is the role G20 now plays. It came into being at the time of the economic crisis that the leading players in the world should get together, meet and have a negotiation of what cannot be done. So a quasi informal platform, formal platform if you will, which allows for bilateral, other initiatives being taken, not committed like you would do the United Security Council resolutions, but in terms of how to go about the future. It does seem that G20 now shows that that kind of space is no longer there. The idea of G20 was of course the G7 or the United States will hegemonize the world and G20 will fall in line with G7. Now that's not happening because you have Russia, you have China and you have India and a whole bunch of other players if you take G20 for instance, G7 is actually isolated on the question of Russia sanctions or on the question of even China, economic war on China, in which even Germany is now trying to break ranks that you cannot really isolate China economically, then our industry is also going to collapse. No energy from Russia, no industrial tie up with China, in terms of markets, we are going to be in a soup. So given all of that, G20 is no longer the place in which these discussions are going to take place. That seems to be the sense that for what you are saying and this is no, let's be a little hopeful, let's be a little hopeful despair by saying that you touched a good point saying that maybe in trying to isolate Russia, the US is getting isolated, which could very well be the likely outcome of this setup because it's not that India isn't holding talks with other countries or the other countries on talking among themselves. I mean Germany, Spain, several members, France, seven members of the European Union are going to hold bilateral talks with India and with others, including the other BRICS nations. So maybe G20, whether it survives or not, it's too early for us to take call, but maybe we'll see many fractals inside this bigger group. Maybe there will be trade zones established, maybe there will be individual trade agreements established. So in a sense, this is really throwing the arena open and by all means, there is a not so subtle snubbing of America being the principal shepherd of this entire program. If you really see the continuity between ASEAN, COP and this and you listen to India's statements for that matter, they have yielded zero ground when it comes to energy. They've said that, sorry, we are not going to compromise our energy security in any way because we want to be validated by whoever else, the US or their allies and that's the same thing with Germany. Yeah, I think what you were saying is true that the G20 may not reach a conclusion, but the bilaterals and the trilaterals, the smaller groups meeting, could show that G20 is not going to be hegemonized by any country and therefore a more multilateral world is now coming into being and it is not going to be shepherded by either the United States or its allies, which is really the G7, which as I think the new statements had once called the White Boys Club, the ex-colonial states and the settler colonial states, deciding the future of the world, I think that's one of the takeaways. What will be the nature? I hear, Prabhidha, you've actually used two words which are very crucially, settler and colonial. You see the White Boys Club as you very rightly characterize the G7 because they do embody irrespective of the genderedness of the word boys. They actually do embody the spirit of the White Boys Club globally at the moment. Maybe this G20 will be a time for them to come to terms with the reality that look, you guys are the feudal lords of a feudal era that's passed. The rest of the world hasn't really gotten much from you firstly and the big changes that now maybe they aren't waiting for too much from you when it comes to their own energy needs, their industry needs, their employment, their economy, their climate issues and so on and so forth. That's a very important point and if you look at the map which we have, you will see large parts of the world. It's not G7, it's really G20 and even in G20 you see Africa is missing except only South Africa. Of course in the White Boys Club you also have Japan who were considered even in South Africa at times as honorary whites and they of course identified themselves in the Central Colombian states as well. They just wanted their colonies. So given this, I think what we are seeing is the hegemony of G7 which emerged really after the fall of Soviet Union and the US becoming the sole hegemon in which first Russia is G8 and then G20. That sort of being turned back and there is the attempt to of G7 trying to hegemonize which according to what you're seeing on the ground is not succeeding in G20 and you've also brought on the COP 27 that that is not that's also not going too well for them over there. So I think a new world order emerging hopefully out of the ashes of the Ukraine war hopefully that it will lead to a more equal political partnership between countries and hopefully again we hope that Ukraine war, economic war on China, economic war on Russia can come to a resolution with peaceful settlement of all these issues. When, how? We have to see how that goes. Another very important pointer towards you know the breaking up of the hegemony of the US and its western allies and perhaps the G20 getting reorganized along different axes is the fact that the Chinese Premier has sounded support for the African Union to get a seat at the G20. Now if now consider that approach versus the West which is completely blind willfully blind to the African Union's demand if China for whatever reasons you know we do know China has massive investments in Africa even if it is driven by that narrow goal if China were to really back the African Union to get a seat at the G20 that would be yet another brownie point lost for the West which is always tom-tomming diversity and inclusiveness but we see very little of it actually being implemented. Thank you Siddharth for being with us going through these issues very complex issues in a quick changing world. I think the world is reaching some kind of a really inflection point and the moment and this year seems to be the year in which we will see this unfold. Let us hope the future will bring about settlements of some of the outstanding issues and hopefully a more equal and less hegemonic world order. Thanks for being with us we'll be in touch and hope that we'll get updates from you tomorrow about what happens finally in Bali. And behind me you'll see that Bali streets are a shocker block with traffic because this is too small an island for such big power place and powerful under security converse. Thank you Siddharth we'll be with you tomorrow as well. That's all the time we have the news click today do keep watching news click and also our follow-ups on Bali.