Seventeen G20 heads of state and government will meet in Indonesia with the expectation of the unprecedented meeting between the Chinese and US Presidents, but also the announced absence of the Russian leader.

Indonesia will host the G20 summit, the group of the world's largest economies, this Tuesday in Bali with an unprecedented security deployment on what is known as the disaster-prone "island of the gods."

Seventeen heads of state and government are expected to discuss solutions to a range of global crises on the Hindu island country that has the world's largest Muslim population.

Russian President Vladimir Putin will not be at the summit, and will be represented by his foreign minister, as will Brazil and Mexico. The taboo on Vladimir Putin's presence on the island was only broken last Wednesday, when his office definitively confirmed that he would not be going to Bali. The Kremlin said that the decision was taken personally by Putin and justified it with scheduling reasons and the need for the President to remain in Russia.

The day before, November 9, Moscow had announced the withdrawal of its troops from Kherson, one of the four regions it has illegally annexed since it invaded Ukraine on February 20 of this year. Two days later, the city of Kherson was recaptured by Ukrainian forces with the help of weapons supplied by their Western allies, as had happened before with other regions under Russian control.

If he went to Bali, in addition to the criticism, Putin risked being looked at as a defeated man by the leaders of a significant part of the "collective West" that he has accused of wanting to destroy Russia, a role he left to his diplomacy chief, Sergei Lavrov.

Biden and Xi face to face

Bali will host on Monday, the eve of the two-day G20 summit, the much anticipated meeting between Xi Jiping and Joe Biden, the first on a personal level as presidents of China and the United States, as they knew each other from other roles.

The leaders of the world's two largest economies have spoken by phone since Biden began his term in the White House in January 2021, but the covid-19 pandemic has prevented "face-to-face" meetings. Until Bali.

Washington announced that Biden intends to sensitize Xi to play "a constructive role in containing the worst tendencies" of North Korea, the diplomatic way of asking Beijing to exert its influence on Pyongyang at a time when there are fears that Kim Jong-un's regime will conduct a nuclear test.

The trade war between the two countries, Chinese threats to Taiwan, the military presence in the South China Sea, human rights in Xinjiang, and the war in Ukraine (and its consequences for the world economy) should be other topics of conversation.

Xi may have his questions, but Beijing has not revealed what it intends to talk about with Biden.