Jaishankar says China, Pakistan not invited to join Voice of Global South summit

China and Pakistan were not part of the Voice of Global South Summit hosted virtually by India on Saturday, and the meeting was joined by leaders and ministers of 123 countries to discuss key challenges facing developing countries.

Several countries raised the conflicts in Gaza and Ukraine during the day-long summit, external affairs minister S Jaishankar told a media briefing. The countries that raised the situation in Gaza expressed concern at the civilian casualties and emphasised the need to put in place a ceasefire and resume negotiations, he said.

Responding to questions, Jaishankar said both China and Pakistan were not invited to the third edition of the summit hosted by India. In the case of China, he said, “Were they invited, the answer is no.”

India’s relations with China and Pakistan are currently at an all-time low, and both countries were also not part of the two earlier Voice of Global South Summits held last year.

The summit was joined by a total of 123 countries, including India. Twenty-one countries participated in the leaders’ session, while 118 ministers joined various sessions devoted to issues such as digital, trade, and health. A total of 34 countries participated in the two sessions for foreign ministers.

Bangladesh’s interim government head Muhammad Yunus, who participated in the leaders’ session, spoke about the situation in his country in the wake of the collapse of the Sheikh Hasina government and about challenges confronting the world, including geopolitics and the impact of Covid-19 and climate change.

There were references to terrorism and extremism as a challenge for the Global South during the foreign ministers’ sessions, Jaishankar said. These sessions also discussed debt burden, liquidity crunch and its effect on trade, and the need for developing countries to have access to more windows of lending, he said.

Jaishankar said the issue of “political interference” was raised by several countries in the leaders’ and foreign ministers’ sessions. He described it as a “concern” for many countries in the Global South but didn’t give details.

The issue of reforming the United Nations also figured in the summit, with Jaishankar saying there is a need to reconcile many different ideas for the proposed reforms and then give UN members the ability to make a choice. There should be text-based negotiations, and countries should be allowed to vote on the future of the UN, he said.

“We are not going to get perfect unity among 190 odd countries in the world…nor do we expect it…We feel that process has been unduly and unfairly blocked,” Jaishankar said.

With India’s capabilities and economic heft set to grow, the country will have to cope with more responsibilities and expectations, especially from countries of the Global South, he said.