President Joe Biden aims to seize on the absence of two key adversaries at this weekend’s Group of 20 leaders meeting in New Delhi to make fresh inroads with countries that China and Russia have previously courted.

Russian President Vladimir Putin and Chinese President Xi Jinping both opted to skip this year’s gathering, giving Mr Biden an opening to reestablish the US as the polestar of the international system. He’ll take the US case to nations such as Brazil, South Africa and Indonesia – not to mention the host, India – that are eager for closer ties with China and have declined to take sides after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

Bloomberg