“It is increasingly the case that the guest list for these sorts of things is quite large,” but “not everyone is invited,” said Tristen Naylor, a Cambridge University professor and expert on summits and diplomacy.
The G7 wants to be seen as a “club dedicated to the protection of democracy” and wants more support for its support for Ukraine and efforts to counter China,” he told AFP.
India is a long-standing military ally of Russia, and its “ambivalent position” on the war in Ukraine is out of step with that of other major democracies, Naylor said.
“So it will be an opportunity for the G7 to at least try to win India over to their side,” he added, warning it will be difficult.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky is scheduled to speak remotely at the summit, while a Russian delegation will be in India in November for the G20 summit, and few expect Prime Minister Narendra Modi to make any sudden political changes.
An alternative to China
Another “main goal” of the summit will be to offer an alternative to China’s huge infrastructure investments around the world, according to Naylor.
Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva was in China in April, whose government promised to seek “high-quality development” that “opens up opportunities for Brazil.”
But Lula is not the only ruler courted by China, and the G7 allies want to show they can offer an alternative.
“This idea of containing Chinese influence while maintaining the rules-based world order in the Global South” will be an important part of the summit, said Chris Johnstone, Japan officer at the Center for Strategic and International Studies.
Japan has already advanced work on that front. Its Prime Minister Fumio Kishida and Foreign Minister Yoshimasa Hayashi have traveled this year to Africa, Southeast Asia, Latin America and the Pacific.
In India, Kishida in March promised $75 billion of public and private investment in infrastructure in the Asia-Pacific region by 2030.
With information from AFP and EFE