By Anjali Sharma

WASHINGTON – Some diplomats on Saturday expressed concerns that the US absence or rather the presence of middle and junior US diplomats based in South Africa, will create a major hurdle in crafting a joint Communique.

The empty American chair at the G20 summit has become the proverbial elephant which may well dominate proceedings at the Johannesburg summit of the world’s twenty largest economies.

US President Donald Trump opted out not to send senior officials to G20 summit has signaled a rare withdrawal from a forum it once dominated, unsettling allies, emboldening rivals, and quietly opening the door for new powers ranged from China to Russia to even India to step forward.

The absence of either US President Donald Trump, who has refused the invitation citing unproven claims that South Africa’s white minority have been facing large-scale killings and land grabs, or any other ranking US official, is being seen as both a political rebuke to South Africa and a broader retreat from multilateral engagement.

The organizers have scaled back the ambition of the final outcome, aware that Washington will not be present to underwrite major initiatives.

South Africa the host of G20 summit has immediate reputational and financial implications.

Pretoria risks losing momentum at a moment when it seeks to project its leadership of Africa and the wider Global South.

The vacuum created can easily be turned into an opening for China, the world’s second largest economy and for Russia which would like to perceived as the world power it was during the Soviet era.

PM Narendra Modi participation send sharp contrast to Washington’s disengagement could also elevate New Delhi’s standing as one of the few major powers consistently invested in the G20’s future.

Former Secretary in the Ministry of External Affairs Pinak Ranjan Chakravarty said “Probably it’s a good time for other powers ranging from China to Europe to even us, to try take decisions which will help the global economies and to the global south”.

It to be seen how the G20 will navigate through the thorny topics of climate change mitigation, reworking critical mineral supply chains so that one single country is unable to dominate commerce in the raw materials needed to shape a greener earth or for that matter in the global desire to police and control the new frontier of artificial intelligence.

Diplomats said issues at the heart of the Global South, debt restructuring, equitable climate finance, digital public goods, and early steps toward AI governance, now face fewer obstacles without a dominant US voice steering priorities.

They added that without US acceptance of decisions taken at Johannesburg, it is to be seen whether those very decisions can or will be implemented or for that matter accepted by the larger comity of nations.

Diplomats tracking the summit stated the shift could accelerate a broader tilt toward a more multipolar order, or worse, toward fragmented parallel institutions such as BRICS, which India, China, Russia and South Africa have long championed but which have yet to take the heft of structured and accepted institutions such as the G7 or G20.