How Beijing Tried To Derail A G20 Youth Meeting In Ladakh And Failed

China engaged in an intense but ultimately abortive backroom attempt to derail a G20 youth conference held in Ladakh in late April, according to persons aware of the matter.

- Shashank Mattoo

Youth20, or Y20, is an engagement group of youth organizations that comes under the umbrella of the G20, of which India holds the presidency this year.

According to the persons cited above, China flew participating organizations that were due to attend the Ladakh ‘pre-summit’ all the way to Beijing for what it called a youth conference in March.

However, Beijing’s goal was to convince these organizations to skip the Youth20 pre-summit meeting, which was to be held in Ladakh on 26 April.The summit is set to be held later this year.

“China firmly opposes holding any form of G20 meetings on disputed territory,“ the spokesperson of China’s foreign ministry, Wang Wenbin, was quoted as saying during a press briefing in Beijing. “We will not attend such meetings."