World leaders gathered in New Delhi for a summit to end India’s G20 presidency. In an era of geopolitical resurgence and stagnant international cooperation, one must ask, what is the value of the G20? G20?
The G20 first emerged after the Asian financial crisis in 1997, initially to put out economic fires. In 2008, with the emergence of the global financial crisis, the forum became even more important and was elevated to a leaders-level summit. At the time, it worked.
With the strong cooperation of President Barack Obama and the leaders of China, India, Europe, and even Russia, the G20 prevented a global recession from turning into a Great Depression. It does this by coordinating macroeconomic policies, mobilizing hundreds of billions of dollars for crisis management, and establishing vital supervisory cooperation mechanisms such as the Financial Stability Board.
On this basis, the G20 declared the establishment of “Our premier forum for international economic cooperation” September 2009 Pittsburgh summit. In recent years, however, the G20 has proven no more effective in crisis management than as a steering committee for the global economy. Crucially, it missed opportunities to address major global challenges such as pandemics and climate change.
Today, it is hard to imagine the same level of cooperation on almost any issue between countries that came together during the financial crisis. India has used its G20 presidency this year to highlight its economic success and tout some of its domestic achievements, including in the area of digital public infrastructure. Its theme, “One Planet, One Family, One Future,” sets out a broad agenda for cooperation, but geopolitics has prevented India and Indonesia, the former G20 chair, from using the forum to make progress on the most pressing international challenges. Chinese President Xi Jinping’s decision not to attend the New Delhi summit has made it more difficult for any of the attendees to make any progress with China.
Clearly, it is impossible to reach a consensus on the war in Ukraine among the 20 major powers.
In its heyday, the G20 was a productive forum, laying the groundwork for progress in UN climate change negotiations. It now appears that this is also beyond the realm of possibility. The next G20 summit is unlikely to yield any meaningful consensus on the role of fossil fuels, which could boost climate change talks in the UAE in November.
However, there is still value to these gatherings. Summits can force action, mobilizing national bureaucracies to get the job done within set deadlines. The G20 summit can also be an important opportunity for formal bilateral talks and informal ad hoc meetings that might otherwise be difficult to succeed.
Having 20+ leaders in one room for two days (basically unattended) is a rare opportunity. The value of the summit is that it provides an opportunity for leaders to have an impromptu, candid exchange of views. This has proven to be easier to do with smaller, like-minded groups such as the G7, but the G20 is better off throwing away all the prepared speeches and talking points and focusing on what matters open dialogue on issues. sky.
The G20 is also becoming an important forum for dialogue among the West, China, Russia and middle powers. This dynamic is particularly evident. The G20 presidencies last year, such as Indonesia, India this year, and Brazil next year, are all developing countries, and they play an important role in maintaining the continuity of G20 work.
These middle powers are sometimes referred to as the “global south,” but it is by no means a monolithic group. Unlike the Non-Aligned Movement that arose during the Cold War, these countries would cooperate with the West on some issues and perhaps be more sympathetic to China and Russia on others.
To address this complexity, the United States will need to continue to adopt a more nuanced form of diplomacy than traditional approaches: less explicit friends and adversaries and more focus on building fluid structures of supportive alliances around specific issues. A Biden administration intends to develop a value proposition for the Global South, and this could be an important step in that direction.
The G20 may have lost its luster as the premier forum for international economic cooperation, but it can still play a potentially beneficial role. India will have to make the most of the next summit, while the US will have to prove that it can navigate the dynamics of a rapidly changing international system with skill and sophistication.
Michael Froman is chairman of the Council on Foreign Relations. He served as the G20 coordinator from 2009 to 2012 and as the U.S. trade representative from 2013 to 2017.
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