Following the Russian offensive in Ukraine, Western countries, including the US and their allies, imposed sanctions on Russia in a bid to force it to withdraw its forces.
Also on Tuesday, a top US security advisor said Washington would lead pressure on Russia to be cut from international forums over its military campaign, including the Group of Twenty (G20) forum of major economies.
“On the question of the G20, I will just say this: We believe that it cannot be business as usual for Russia in international institutions and in the international community,” White House National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan said.
China, however, stressed that Russia is an “important member” of the G20 and cannot be expelled by another member.
“The G20 is the main forum for international economic cooperation,” Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Wang Wenbin told reporters recently “Russia is an important member, and no member has the right to expel another country.”
The Kremlin also said that Washington was exerting “overt and hardly diplomatic pressure” on other countries to have Russia removed from the G20.
However, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters recently that some members that
“prefer to adhere to their independent, sovereign points of view” were resisting.
Culled from www.edition.cnn.com