Globalisation
Keen to boost its diplomatic credentials, summit host Indonesia was left disappointed after Russian President Vladmir Putin declined as invitation to attend.
Man down While Putin’s absence was felt in an empty seat, he nonetheless made his presence known on the event’s opening night. As world leaders sat down for a meal, and enjoyed a performance by traditional Balinese dancers, Russia fired scores of missiles into Ukraine. Earlier this year, senior director of the Atlantic Council’s GeoEconomics Centre, Josh Lipsky, laid out a case for why US President Joe Biden should attend this year’s summit, regardless of animosity between the US and Russia. As Lipsky put it, this was because “you don’t want Putin controlling the agenda”. Ironically, on the event’s very first night, Biden and other leaders were woken from their slumber to schedule an emergency meeting about the latest Russian attack. The following day was supposed to be a day of diplomacy filled with mangrove planting and precisely scheduled bilateral meetings. Instead, several discussions were cancelled, and “the G20 quickly became an ad hoc meeting of the G7”, as the Guardian reported. This G20 was always an event with “low expectations for outcomes and high expectations for tensions”, as Jeremy Mark, senior fellow at Atlantic Council’s GeoEconomics Centre, predicted. A G18+2 or a G19+1 situation was expected – where Putin, or Xi Jinping, or both, disagreed with an otherwise overwhelming majority of the coalition. But it would be wrong to suggest the full extent to which Putin dominated proceedings was anticipated – not least given he was thousands of miles away in Moscow.
Josh Lipsky, senior director, Atlantic Council’s GeoEconomics Centre
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The communiqué agreed by diplomats even stated that “most members strongly condemned the war in Ukraine and stressed it is causing immense human suffering and exacerbating existing fragilities in the global economy”. Unsurprisingly, Putin’s ally Xi took a different approach, arguing that the G20 must “resolutely oppose the attempt
to politicise food and energy issues or use them as tools and weapons”. Ukraine’s Volodymyr Zelensky, for his part, pointedly referred to “leaders of the G19” in a video address, and reiterated demands for Moscow to remove its troops from his country. Xi’s attendance, it is worth noting, marked his emergence from three years of pandemic isolation – and his bilateral meeting with Biden set a largely positive tone. That was shadowed by other opportunities for one-on-one diplomacy. President Emmanuel Macron of France, for example, used his meeting with Xi to argue for a negotiated solution to the war in Ukraine, and said he would like to visit China next year.
Expect the unexpected
So what did the summit achieve beyond confirming the world’s concerns about Putin – and were the soothsayers right? Before the event, the G20 presidency set three priorities: global health architecture, digital economy transformation and the energy transition.
The aftermath of the pandemic was a far less dominant topic than it was at last year’s summit in Rome. Instead, the effects of the pandemic were mainly viewed in light of the global economic downturn. As a coalition specifically put together to tackle issues facing the global economy, the group represents over 80% of the international output, and speaking with a coordinated voice is hugely impactful. “All countries, China included, have a vested interest in ameliorating the impact of a global economic slow-down,” as Lipsky put it. Mark agreed that the dire state of the global economy can help bring leaders together. “Global recessions provide tremendous incentives to concentrate the collective mind,” he said. “I think we’ve seen more progress in terms of finding common ground on key global economic issues when the world economy has been in a downturn.”
Finance Director Europe /
www.financedirectoreurope.com
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