World leaders at the Mahatma Gandhi memorial at Raj Ghat on the sidelines of the G20 summit in New Delhi this week. A striking feature of the diplomacy over the Ukraine war running through the summits is relativisation of the issue as seen by leaders from the Global South. Western media preoccupations with these diplomatic manoeuvres – and with US-China competition through the summits – obscure the deeper reality that stronger and better resourced states in the Global South are rightly demanding change in world power structures. Biden did not attend the Asean summit while Xi Jinping and Vladimir Putin skipped the G20 one. The changes open up opportunities for imaginative Irish diplomacy by turning Ireland’s former subaltern position to advantage to argue for a greater Global South role in world governance.

Source: The Irish Times September 16, 2023 23:43 UTC