With so much in common – and with those who disagree getting shunned – it is little wonder that the G7 manages to agree on more than the G20. But the G20 better represents our diverse, complex world, making it the grouping on which effective global cooperation depends.
BALI/HONG KONG – Last October’s G20 Leaders’ Summit – held in Rome, and hosted by then-Italian Prime Minister Mario Draghi – produced a declaration brimming with promises to “address today’s most pressing global challenges” and “converge upon common efforts to recover better from the COVID-19 crisis and enable sustainable and inclusive growth” across the world. What a difference a year makes.
The promise of 2021 should not be understated. The Leaders’ Declaration that the Rome summit produced included noble pledges to give “particular regard to the needs of the most vulnerable.” When it came to global public goods, the 61-paragraph document covered virtually every base, from food security to the circular economy, from the environment to the international financial architecture.
That makes the events of 2022 all the more disappointing. The meeting of G20 Finance Ministers and Central Bank Governors in Bali last month – largely overshadowed by discord over Russia’s war in Ukraine – did not produce a communiqué at all. And, as it stands, there is little reason to think that this November’s G20 Leaders’ Summit in Bali will go any better.
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Writing for PS since 2011
130 Commentaries
Andrew Sheng, a distinguished fellow at the Asia Global Institute at the University of Hong Kong, is a member of the UNEP Advisory Council on Sustainable Finance.
Writing for PS since 2012
120 Commentaries
Xiao Geng, Chairman of the Hong Kong Institution for International Finance, is a professor and Director of the Institute of Policy and Practice at the Shenzhen Finance Institute at The Chinese University of Hong Kong, Shenzhen.
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It is unlikely that the G7 countries would listen to the advice of the two authors or to the voice of the rest of G20, i.e. the 13 much less wealthy nations.
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Though US Republicans performed much worse than expected in this week’s midterm elections, they may yet secure a thin majority in the House of Representatives, with control of the Senate likely to be decided in a runoff in Georgia in December. At a time of deep polarization, soaring inflation, and heightened geopolitical tensions, we asked PS commentators what the election results mean for the US and the world.
A political earthquake in the United States was averted in the midterm elections. With the Democrats exceeding expectations, US foreign policy will remain mostly on familiar terrain for the next two years, until the 2024 presidential election – after which anything can, and possibly will, happen.
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