The agendas of China and the United States at the summit, a gathering of the world’s biggest economies, showed how both powers are courting other nations with dueling priorities and spending programs. That rivalry can sometimes benefit middle powers — like Indonesia, the host country — by generating competition to provide aid and support, but it can also leave them fearful of being squeezed between the jostling giants.
“This grouping is not interested in choosing sides,” said Courtney J. Fung, an associate fellow at the Lowy Institute in Sydney, Australia, referring to Southeast Asian countries like Indonesia. “They would rather that these two states figure it out so that they don’t get crushed in the middle.”
For Mr. Xi, his trip to Indonesia was his first in-person appearance at a major global gathering outside China in recent years. His first trip abroad since the pandemic took hold was to Uzbekistan in September. His power bolstered by a Chinese Communist Party congress that last month extended his rule for another five years, Mr. Xi appears poised to recharge China’s diplomacy. He has said he wants China to more vigorously promote its solutions to the world’s problems.
But Mr. Xi’s reluctance to take a clearer stance on Ukraine, or to wade into the complicated task of seeking to stop the war, also showed the limits China faces should it seek to displace the United States as a global power broker, Ms. Fung said.
Mr. Xi used the global platform of the G20 to promote a so-called Global Security Initiative, a vague proposal begun earlier this year to offer China’s solutions to international conflict and threats. The idea appears to be at least partly driven by the Chinese government’s sensitivity to criticisms that it failed to stand by its declared reverence for sovereignty when Russia invaded Ukraine.
So far, the proposal was “an upgrade in China saying ‘I don’t like what the Americans have done,’ but it’s not entirely clear to me what Beijing is offering,” Ms. Fung said. “It’s still unclear to me what better answers they can offer to difficult questions.”