Rishi Sunak has arrived in Indonesia for a summit of the world’s most powerful economies which is expected to be dominated by tensions over Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
With Vladimir Putin dodging the annual G20 leaders’ gathering, the prime minister has vowed to confront his foreign minister Sergey Lavrov when the pair come face to face round the conference table.
Mr Lavrov was reported to have been taken into hospital shortly after arrival at the summit venue in beach resort Bali, but he later posted footage of himself on social media, relaxing in T-shirt and shorts at his hotel and apparently healthy.
The G20 is the second international summit attended by Mr Sunak in a hectic three weeks since becoming PM, following the COP27 talks in Egypt last week. He left the UK on Sunday afternoon for the 18-hour flight to the south east Asian archipelago state.
He had been hoping to add a visit to Japan onto the end of the trip, but was forced to ditch the idea in order to come back to London for Jeremy Hunt’s crucial autumn statement on Thursday.
As well as attending round-table sessions on energy, food supplies and digital issues, Mr Sunak will hold his first meeting with US president Joe Biden as well as face-to-face talks with Canada’s Justin Trudeau, Japanese PM Fumio Kishida, India’s president Narendra Modi and Australia’s Anthony Albanese.
More controversially, he will sit down for talks with Saudi Arabia’s crown prince Mohammed bin Salman, who is widely believed to be implicated in the murder of journalist Jamal Khashoggi. Discussions are likely to focus on stepping up oil and gas production in response to the disruption of supplies from Russia.
The Ukraine war will dominate the two-day gathering, with Western nations maintaining a united front in condemnation of Russian aggression, while all eyes will be on Mr Modi and China’s Xi Jinping for signs that they are shifting their more neutral stance towards Moscow.
Leaving China for the first time since the Covid pandemic, Xi will hold high-profile talks with Mr Biden on Monday, with tension over Taiwan likely to top the agenda, alongside Ukraine and trade.
