FAULT LINES PLAGUE LEADERS SUMMIT: Biden will have a bilateral meeting this Friday with the Indian prime minister on the sidelines of the annual G-20 summit, the White House confirmed, as a diverse group of advanced and emerging economies seek to shore up engagement despite rising geopolitical friction on multiple fronts. The Biden administration has remained tight-lipped about the details of the meeting, but the partners are likely to build upon a landmark trade defense pact announced this summer between General Electric and Hindustan Aeronautics, a state-owned company in New Delhi. There also could be progress on non-defense trade issues, Rick Rossow, chair in U.S.-India Policy Studies at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, told reporters last week. The two sides resolved six outstanding WTO disputes when Modi visited the White House in June, but were unable to reach a deal on a seventh one involving Indian poultry market access barriers that the United States challenged back in 2012. The discussion comes one day before the main G-20 summit, scheduled for Saturday and Sunday. The confab is expected to draw officials from dozens of countries and organizations, who will angle to enhance cooperation even as global fault lines deepen over the Russian invasion into Ukraine and Washington’s tech rivalry with Beijing. No Biden-Xi meeting: Biden said he was “disappointed” that his Chinese counterpart Xi Jinping would skip the G-20 summit, but added “I am going to see him” in response to a question from a reporter in Rehoboth Beach, Del., without elaborating. Xi is expected at the APEC leaders summit that Biden is hosting in San Francisco in November, although Beijing still has not confirmed his attendance. China’s foreign ministry did confirm Monday that Chinese Premier Li Qiang will attend the weekend summit in New Delhi in place of Xi. The country is facing an economic slowdown which has sparked concerns of a spillover into regional markets, and even the American economy. In it for Washington: The American president wants to use his G-20 visit to present a “value proposition” to the developing world and to focus attention on the need to modernize the multilateral development banks, said national security adviser Jake Sullivan. The IMF and the World Bank need to offer a better alternative to development support and financing than China’s “coercive and unsuitable” Belt and Road Initiative, Sullivan told reporters in a recent call. Those efforts could be spearheaded by Janet Yellen, who announced she will attend the G-20 summit, and will focus on advancing multilateral development bank evolution, debt restructuring and the IMF’s Poverty Reduction and Growth Trust, Treasury said. The treasury secretary will also “continue to rally” Washington’s partners to financially back Kyiv amid Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine. And for India: The summit offers a chance for Modi to showcase the country’s global clout and potentially expand its influence over emerging markets. Indian officials are also insisting that a joint statement is in reach, per the Financial Times, even after China and Russia blocked earlier joint statements condemning Moscow’s invasion. Vietnam partnership on tap: Biden will visit Vietnam on Sept. 10 after attending the New Delhi summit, and is poised to sign a strategic partnership with the country that could boost Vietnam's high tech sectors in semiconductors and artificial intelligence, Phelim Kine reports. The partnership is sure to irk China, which was Vietnam’s largest trading partner in 2022. VP Harris in the fray: The vice president departed for Jakarta on Monday to attend the Southeast Asian leaders summit, where she will have to assuage doubts over the administration’s commitment to the region given the president’s absence, and navigate regional disputes and crisis in Myanmar. NOAA FISHING REPORT TAGS CHINA, TAIWAN, MEXICO: The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration last week identified seven economies — including China, Taiwan and Mexico — for suspected illegal, unreported and unregulated (IUU) fishing. The others were Angola, Grenada, The Gambia and Vanuatu. The report, which is based on activities between 2020 and 2022, is NOAA’s first since WTO members reached an agreement last year to ban subsidies for IUU fishing. More than 60 more members still need to ratify the agreement for it to take effect. The NOAA report does not say whether any of the IUU fishing it identified is subsidized. Forced labor: The NOAA report also said a number of Chinese and Taiwanese fishing vessels used forced labor, mostly migrant workers from Indonesia and the Philippines. “The species and fisheries where forced labor is documented in [China’s] distant water fleet is broad, due to the sheer scale and number of geographies, and includes tuna and squid fisheries, both of which are imported to the United States,” the report said, using similar language to describe the situation in Taiwan’s distant water fleet. Ongoing talks: WTO members are trying a more comprehensive agreement by the group’s 13th ministerial conference in February that would cut subsidies that contribute to overcapacity and overfishing. The United States has been pushing for a provision in that agreement to address concerns about forced labor in the ocean fishing sector.
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