A G20 Brazil banner is displayed at the Rio de Janeiro city hall building in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, on February 15, 2024. On February 21 and 22, the first ministerial meeting of the Sherpa Track will be held in Rio de Janeiro.Photo: AFP

The G20 is the premier forum for international economic cooperation, not a platform for resolving geopolitical and security issues. This is a G20 consensus. We hope that the foreign ministers' meeting will help enhance solidarity and cooperation and contribute to global economic growth and development, a spokesperson of China's Ministry of Foreign Affairs said ahead of a G20 foreign ministers' meeting scheduled for Wednesday in Brazil, while some Western countries are again seeking to turn the event into arena for geopolitical struggles and prevent countries from reaching consensus. 

Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi, due to his schedule, could not attend the meeting and has designated Vice Foreign Minister Ma Zhaoxu to represent China at the meeting, Mao Ning, spokesperson of China's Ministry of Foreign Affairs said on Wednesday.

Brazil is presiding over the G20 this year, and this will be the first meeting of the year of the major economies' foreign ministers.

According to the G20 Brazil website, issues topping the agenda will be the Russia-Ukraine crisis and the situation in the Middle East, among others. 

Russia though has said that the topic of Ukraine is "non-core" for the G20. "The Russian delegation intends to draw special attention of partners to the unacceptability of politicization of the G20, which, according to its mandate, is designed to focus strictly on socio-economic challenges," the Russian foreign ministry said in a statement on its website.

Addressing the Russian foreign ministry's remarks, Mao said at a Wednesday press briefing that the G20 is the premier forum for international economic cooperation, not a platform for resolving geopolitical and security issues. "We hope that the foreign ministers' meeting will help enhance solidarity and cooperation and contribute to global economic growth and development," she said. 

Chinese experts pointed out that in light of increasing global challenges, the US and its Western allies may transform the G20, a platform for global economic cooperation, into a battleground for geopolitical rivalry. This could hinder countries from reaching consensus on important global issues.

"Not only will these countries fail to reach agreement on the Russia-Ukraine crisis, they are unlikely to agree on the Palestine-Israel conflict. Such a dilemma poses a challenge for host Brazil," Qian Feng, director of the research department at the National Strategy Institute at Tsinghua University, told the Global Times.

Despite a push from Western countries for the group to condemn Russia, the G20's last summit, held in New Delhi, India in September, ended with a statement that did not explicitly condemn Russia.

Citing a Brazilian government source, AFP reported that after recent G20 struggles for consensus, the hosts axed the requirement that every meeting produce a joint statement - with the exception of the annual leaders' summit, scheduled for November this year in Rio.

In addition to geopolitical challenges, the world is looking to the countries attending the G20 summit for solutions to stimulate the sluggish economy. Politicizing the event could hinder the agreement-seeking process and ultimately disappoint the global populace, according to Qian.

It is reported that Brazil also wants to use its G20 presidency to push for more to be done to combat poverty and climate change. The African Union will this year make its debut as a full member of the G20, and Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva has reinforced the importance of multilateralism and the role of Global South nations in building a more just world, according to the G20 Brazil website.