Chinese president boycotts G20 in SA

Chinese President Xi Jinping will not be attending the upcoming G20 Leaders' Summit set to take place at the Nasrec Expo Centre in Johannesburg on 22 and 23 November.

China's Ministry of Foreign Affairs confirmed on Thursday that Premier Li Qiang will be representing the country at the event. No reason was given for Xi's absence.

Xi attended last year's G20 Summit in Rio de Janeiro, but Li was sent in his place to the 2023 G20 Summit in New Delhi and to the BRICS Summit in Brazil earlier this year. Xi has scaled back international travel in recent years.

Scott Kennedy, a senior adviser at the Centre for Strategic and International Studies in Washington, told Bloomberg that Xi's absence at the G20 Summit does not indicate a downgrade in the importance of the event to Beijing.

"I don't see any drop-off in their view that those global governance institutions are important avenues for China to communicate its message," he said.

However, it does mean that the presidents of the two most powerful countries will be absent at the G20 for the first time.

Last week, US President Donald Trump confirmed that his country's officials won't attend the G20 in protest, again repeating misleading claims about the treatment of white Afrikaners in the country.

In response, President Cyril Ramaphosa says the US decision to boycott the summit was "their loss".

Russian President Vladimir Putin is also not expected to attend, given that he faces an International Criminal Court arrest warrant, while Argentine President Javier Milei has also decided not to come to South Africa.