China’s President Xi Jinping’s decision to skip the G20 leaders summit has been seen by Pretoria as a chance to form stronger bonds with Beijing’s “future leader”, Premier Li Qiang.
South African diplomats with intimate knowledge of the decision said that Xi’s nonattendance comes as no surprise to Pretoria.
The announcement that Xi will not attend the G20 leaders summit comes after US President Donald Trump announced that he would not be sending any delegation to the summit, denouncing South Africa’s participation in the forum.
This means that the two biggest economies in the world will not be represented by heads of state at the forum.
While some pundits have considered this a blow to President Cyril Ramaphosa’s G20 agenda, government insiders told the Sunday Times that they view this as an opportunity.
There is also an understanding that Xi’s health could be, in part, the reason for his missing the leaders’ summit.
“The Chinese will not say this, but there is a process of transition from Xi to the premier. There is a handover that has been set in motion in Beijing, and the guy who is coming here is next in line to President Xi. They are more orderly in matters of transition; there is no contestation. Everybody knows that this is the guy who is next in line,” a South African official said.
“That is why you are seeing Li lead the Chinese delegation in a lot of major international events, because there is already an institutionalised understanding that this is the guy who is next in line. For us, it’s a big coup that he is coming here, because we have already started cultivating a relationship with him, in the same vein that we had with President Xi,” an official said.
Business Day reported that Li’s attendance continues a recent pattern where the Chinese premier represents the country on key international stages. Since taking office in 2023, he has led China’s delegations to the World Economic Forum in Davos, the East Asia Summit, the UN General Assembly as well as last year’s G20 meeting in New Delhi.
“At the invitation of the government of the Republic of South Africa, premier of the State Council Li Qiang will attend the 20th G20 Summit in Johannesburg from November 21-23,″ China’s foreign ministry said in a statement on Thursday.
Ramaphosa had bilateral meetings with Li on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly earlier this year.
Another government insider said that Ramaphosa will likely have bilateral meetings again with Li during the G20 leaders’ summit. They said that there was an understanding from Pretoria that Li was on the same wavelength, looking beyond the current era.
“There is logic in the madness,” the insider said.
It’s not like the ANC and its succession process. The Chinese do it in a very muted and strategic way. In a sense, they play to the optics. Something is happening politically in China, but also health-wise with Xi
— Sanusha Naidu, foreign relations expert
Li is currently the second-ranking member of China’s Politburo Standing Committee and serves as the premier, responsible for managing the economy and the State Council.
The Sunday Times broke the news that Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum Pardo would not be attending the G20 leaders summit, joining Argentina in sending a senior cabinet minister to lead her country’s delegation.
Ambassador Xolisa Mabhongo confirmed to the Sunday Times this week that at least four heads of state, including Russia’s Vladimir Putin, would not attend the summit.
Despite this, South Africa has maintained that this is not a diplomatic disaster, downplaying Trump’s non-attendance.
The G20 comprises 19 countries ― Argentina, Australia, Brazil, Canada, China, France, Germany, India, Indonesia, Italy, Japan, South Korea, Mexico, Russia, Saudi Arabia, South Africa, Turkiye, the UK and the US — as well as the EU and AU.
Foreign relations expert Sanusha Naidu said Xi’s absence was normal, noting that the leader had missed this year’s Brics summit and COP, and some other major world events. She said, however, that Xi was still very strategic behind the scenes.
“Something is happening in China, and remember this comes on the back of the 15th congress and the plenum is very important because it sets the scene for what the future in the next five years looks like for China. Something is happening, I can’t tell you with any certainty what that is.”
Naidu said Xi’s anti-corruption stance broke the shadow of Jiang Zemin in China with different political and economic actors.
“Whoever is going to succeed him will probably do what people who have anointed successors have done, and that is to keep a strong invisible hand around them,” she said.
She added that the recent purge in China’s leadership was also a strong indicator of what is to come.
“It’s not like the ANC and its succession process. The Chinese do it in a very muted and strategic way. In a sense, they play to the optics. Something is happening politically in China, but also health-wise with Xi,” Naidu said.
The news of Pardo’s absence came after Argentina’s media reported that its president, Javier Milei, a right-wing leader who is allied to Trump, would not be attending the leaders’ summit.
Milei’s foreign minister Pablo Quirino will lead the Argentinian delegation.
Trump announced on his social media platform, Truth Social, that he would not be sending a delegation to South Africa.
Trump has been peddling misinformation against Pretoria, making false claims of a white genocide.
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