Bloomberg: Chinese Premier Li’s G-20 debut eclipsed by Xi in state media

Chinese President Xi Jinping continued to dominate the domestic news agenda despite his absence from the Group of 20 summit in India, with Li Qiang’s attendance in his place receiving scant coverage by official media over the weekend.

On September 10, Xi monopolized the first two pages of the People’s Daily, the Communist Party’s mouthpiece, even though he didn’t make a public appearance or engage in any official meetings. The coverage focused on his trip to northeastern Heilongjiang province that ended on September 8, as well as five letters he sent out on September 9, Bloomberg reports.

[In contrast, Li, the first Chinese premier to attend a G-20, was relegated to Page 4, for a speech he delivered at a summit session and his two bilateral meetings on the sidelines — with Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni and Ursula von der Leyen, the president of the European Commission.

While Li’s arrival in New Delhi was streamed in the official summit feed and reposted by some users on social media platform Weibo, the Chinese embassy in India simply posted a photo of an airplane to announce Li’s landing.

The summit itself didn’t get much play in Chinese official media. State broadcaster CCTV had a one-liner on the summit opening. The addition of the African Union to the bloc was given some airtime, yet by Sunday morning there was no official report on the joint communique adopted a day earlier.

Hours before the summit began on Saturday, a think tank linked to the Ministry of State Security published a strongly-worded criticism of India, accusing the host of pushing its own agenda and causing disagreement. Later that day, CCTV ran an interview with India’s lead G-20 negotiator, or sherpa, who praised China for its “constructive, positive” role in the negotiations.

Xi dominated the news agenda with letters and messages. On Saturday, he sent a congratulation letter to North Korea’s Kim Jong Un on the 75th anniversary of the country’s founding. He also wrote to some teachers ahead of the annual celebration for the profession on Sunday, as well as to a forum on China-Central Asia cooperation.

The president extended condolences to the Moroccan king for the deadly earthquake in the North African nation, as well as to Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva — who is at the G-20 summit — for floods that ravaged the country.