G20 finance ministers meet divided on Ukraine

Inaugurating the G20 Finance Ministers and Bank Governors (FMBG) conference in Bengaluru on Friday, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi said, “I would urge that your discussions should focus on the most vulnerable citizens of the world.” China seems to agree and its finance minister, Liu Kun, who has joined the Bengaluru meeting through a video link, called for an objective analysis of global debt issues and to resolve the problem in a comprehensive and fair manner.

Of course, there were questions whether China would restructure the debt of countries like Zambia, Ghana and Sri Lanka. China is arguing that the global debt burden should be shared fairly by all the rich countries.

Meanwhile, there is a clear division between the G7 industrialised countries, which form part of the G20, have taken an anti-Russia stand and focused on the Ukraine war. G7 countries are holding a separate meeting of their own and are likely to announce further sanctions against Russia as the war in Ukraine crosses the one-year mark.

US Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen had castigated the Russian financial officials attending the meeting as being complicit in the atrocities that Russia is committing in the war in Ukraine. Both India and China have their own positions on the war. Both have refused to condemn Russia. India is holding the presidency of the G20 in 2023.

The Ukraine war is impacting people and countries beyond Europe because Ukraine and Russia export wheat to the Middle East and African countries like Egypt, Lebanon, Kenya, and the war has disrupted the supply chain because Russia has blockaded Ukrainian ports on the Black Sea. Last November, Turkey and the United Nations have brokered a deal by which Ukrainian ships carrying wheat were allowed to pass the Black Sea.

The deal ends at the end of March and there would be a need to renew the agreement. That puts the food security of people in the Middle East and Africa at risk. In Europe, Western sanctions against Russia restricting its oil and gas exports have triggered inflation in oil prices, and it has pushed many of the European economies into distress and has given rise to the cost of living crisis.

There are then two clear challenges before the world, the debilitating debt burden of the lower income countries on the one hand and the Ukrainian war on the other. And it looks like that there are no easy solutions to either of them. And it would be unfair for G7 countries to adopt a stance that they would not

look at the debt issues of the poor countries because their priority is the Ukraine war. At the same time, it cannot be the case that the Ukraine war can continue to be waged and the world not turn its attention to the economic problems. It becomes the unenviable responsibility of the world’s leaders to address both the issues.

It is perhaps necessary to pursue solutions to both the problems in tandem. India and China may have to urge Russia and Ukraine to agree to an immediate truce, and the Western countries must suspend arms exports to Ukraine during the time of the truce. This will be the most difficult solution to be implemented given the hardened stance of Russia, Ukraine, the US and the European Union (EU). Each one of the countries and groups involved must modify their stance to begin the peace process.

The IMF must turn its attention away from the Ukraine war and it must stop identifying itself with the G7 countries, and it has to focus on the debt restructuring of the economically distressed countries like Lebanon, Pakistan and Sri Lanka.