Lan Xue is a professor in and dean of the School of Public Policy and Management at Tsinghua University in Beijing.
Yanbing Zhang is assistant professor in the School of Public Policy and Management at Tsinghua University.
The Role of the G8 in the G20 Era
The Chinese media adopted three approaches in reporting about the recent Canadian summits: general reports about the news related to the summit events, follow-up analysis and reports of media reports from other countries. They focused mainly on three themes: President Hu’s formal state visit to Canada; the G20 summit; and the meetings President Hu had with the leaders of Canada, the United States, the United Kingdom, Russia, Japan and South Korea. There were no detailed reports about the G8 summit in the mainstream media (such as Xinhua News Agency, China’s state news agency), nor could one find any analysis of the relationship between the G8 and the G20. However, some Hong Kong and Shanghai newspapers did discuss the G8 and G20, arguing that the G8 was the old global governance mechanism and the G20 was the new one, and it would take time for the new system to replace the old.
There were also some interesting reports about the attitudes of foreign governments toward the G8 and G20. First, at the G8 summit, Japan made an informal proposal to invite China to join the G8. Second, the United States may want the G20 to become only the centre for global economic governance, but Europe hopes the G20 will become the committee to govern all global issues. Third, after the G8 summit, the Chinese media reported that Canadian Prime Minister Harper accepted that, as far as global economic decision making was concerned, the G8 was in decline and the G20 should take on more responsibilities.
Overall, it seemed clear that China supports the G20 rather than the G8+. According to Mr. Yang Jiechi, China’s foreign minister, China believes that this G20 summit was successful and will try to work with other countries to make the G20 a real platform for international economic cooperation.
G20 Conflict or Cooperation
It should be mentioned that the G20 has still not captured the attention and imagination of the general public in China. Reports on the G20 did not appear on front pages of the media. At the same time, scholars and policy analysts are paying close attention to the G20 and have provided many commentaries to the news media.
There were many reports concerning the divergent and convergent views at the Toronto G20 Summit in the Chinese context. It was quite clear, however, that the former was much more prevalent than the latter. It seemed as though there were several deep divergences among G20 countries on the key issues, and convergence only existed on some general principles — for instance, consolidating global economic recovery, opposing protectionism and promoting economic growth.
China’s media mainly reported on two big divergences at the G20 summit. One was the different views between the United States and Europe on stimulus policy. According to their reports, the United States wants to maintain stimulus in order to promote growth, but Europe hopes that stimulus policies will be ended soon to save the euro. The other divergence concerned bank taxes. The United States and Europe support a global bank tax, but countries such as Canada, Japan, Australia, China and India do not accept this idea.
Compared with the previous three G20 summits, the reports on the outcome of the Toronto summit were less optimistic. After reviewing these reports, it was difficult to perceive how “equivalence, consistency and cohesion” were achieved and communicated at this G20.
The G20 Framework
There was no detailed report explaining what this G20 framework is in the Chinese context. The only reference to the G20 framework was President Hu Jintao’s three suggestions concerning this framework — namely, making the G20 the centre of global economic governance, building a new and fair international financial system and defending the global free trade system. According to some analysts, the first suggestion implies there is a need to establish an effective operating mechanism for the G20. Otherwise, the G20 will not be able to play the role people envisioned.
G20 Record of Achievement
The Chinese media gave quite a positive interpretation of the achievements of the previous three G20 summits. The Washington summit was described as the starting point of reforming the international financial system, the achievements of the London summit were summarized as providing funding to the IMF and enhancing financial regulation and the achievements of the Pittsburgh summit included the consensus among G20 countries on reforming the international financial system and the institutionalization of the G20 as the premier forum for international economic cooperation.
The Toronto summit was defined by the Chinese media as the first G20 summit after the G20 was institutionalized in Pittsburgh. As mentioned above, although there were many reports on the divergent views among G20 countries at this summit, China’s official media gave a very positive evaluation of the Toronto summit, stating that it was a success. Xinhua News Agency declared that the Toronto summit was successful as the G20 worked to achieve the commitments made at the last three summits in addition to creating a timetable for reducing the global deficit and IMF reform, and opposed protectionist measures. More importantly, the Xinhua News Agency argued that the G20 — as a new institution — will be helpful in facilitating reforms of the World Trade Organization, IMF and World Bank, which have been used by the developed world to govern the world economy. In general, within the G20 framework, developing countries, including China, will play a more important role in world economic cooperation. While there were many reports on the divergent views among G20 countries at this summit, China’s official media gave a very positive evaluation of the Toronto summit, stating that it was a success. Xinhua News Agency declared that the Toronto summit was successful as the G20 worked to achieve the commitments made at the last three summits in addition to creating a timetable for reducing the global deficit and IMF reform, and opposed protectionist measures. More importantly, the Xinhua News Agency argued that the G20 — as a new institution — will be helpful in facilitating reforms of the World Trade Organization, IMF and World Bank, which have been used by the developed world to govern the world economy. In general, within the G20 framework, developing countries, including China, will play a more important role in world economic cooperation.