G20 “Head Hunt”: Skipping these Summits is a Common Practice for Top Leaders

Nearly all of the activities held since the G20 summit’s beginning in 2008 have included participation from leaders of state or government. Some national leaders do, however, sometimes choose to forgo the summit.

India, the United States, the United Kingdom, Canada, Germany, Italy, South Korea, Turkey, and representatives from the European Union are just a few of the leaders of the many nations that have attended the summit activities. There were representatives from the European Union and the presidents of all 20 regular member nations at the first three G20 meetings in 2008 and 2009.

The first year that the leaders of Australia and Brazil missed the fourth G20 Summit in Toronto in June 2010 was that year. Wayne Swan, the deputy prime minister of Australia, served as the group’s leader. Guido Mantega, the finance minister of Brazil, served as the group’s representative.

Saudi Arabia’s King Abdullah bin Abdulaziz made the decision not to go to Seoul, South Korea, for the G20 meeting in November 2010. Saud bin Faisal bin Abdulaziz Al Saud, the foreign minister of Saudi Arabia, served as the delegation’s leader. Since that time, the Saudi Arabian King has mostly opted to abstain from the G20 conferences, delegating the task to other princes or ministers in the nation. The summits in 2013, 2015, and 2020 were skipped by the King. The G20 summit was initially planned to take place in Riyadh under Saudi Arabia’s chairmanship in 2020. However, because to the Covid-19 issue, it was practically held, with all national leaders giving speeches from a distance.

Ibrahim Abdulaziz Al-Assaf, the Saudi government’s finance minister, led the team to the G20 meetings in Cannes, France in 2011 and Los Cabos, Mexico, in 2012. Crown Prince Salman bin Abdulaziz Al Saud, who succeeded to the throne in 2015 after the death of his half-brother King Abdullah, headed the delegation at the 2014 G20 summit in Brisbane, Australia. He also attended the 2015 G20 summit in Antalya, Turkey.

Mohammad bin Salman Al Saud, the Saudi Kingdom’s deputy crown prince, headed the delegation to the G20 summit in Hangzhou in 2016, and he will again lead the delegations to the summits in 2018, 2019, and 2022. The nation was represented at the summits in 2017 and 2021 by its ministers.

The Australian delegation was represented at the 2013 G20 Saint Petersburg summit by Bob Carr, the country’s foreign minister. Argentina’s and Saudi Arabia’s national leaders did not attend the Australian version in 2014. The presidents of France and Argentina did not attend the meeting in 2015.

The leaders of two nations missed the summits in 2018 and 2019. The Saudi monarch did not attend either edition, as was already announced. While the Mexican president missed the 2019 G20 Osaka meeting, the Indonesian president opted out of the G20 Buenos Aires conference in Argentina in 2018.

The majority of G20 normal nation leaders skipped the Rome meeting in 2021 because of worries over the COVID-19.

Wang Yi, the country’s minister of foreign affairs, served as the delegation’s leader, while Chinese President Xi Jinping spoke to it from a distance. Finance Minister Anton Siluanov served as the head of the Russian delegation. The delegation from Mexico was headed by Secretary of Foreign Affairs Marcelo Ebrard, while Japan was represented by Minister of Foreign Affairs Toshimitsu Motegi. Saudi Arabia was represented by its minister of foreign affairs, Prince Faisal bin Farhan Al Saud, while the South African side was headed by Naledi Pandor, the country’s minister of international relations and cooperation.

The presidents of Brazil, Mexico, Saudi Arabia, and Russia opted out of the Bali summit in Indonesia in 2022. Due to Western criticism and sanctions after the start of his country’s conflict with neighboring Ukraine, Russian President Vladimir Putin made the decision not to attend.