Soon after the Asia-Pacific Economic
Cooperation (APEC) summit concluded in Beijing earlier this month, the two-day
G20 Summit also ended in Brisbane, Australia.
Compared
with the APEC's meeting orchestrated by the host China with a strong position,
with leaders jointly announcing Beijing guidelines to formally launch the
agenda of the Free Trade Area of the Asia Pacific (FTAAP), the G20 leaders
agreed with a Brisbane action plan of 800 new measures to boost the global
economy, but the outside world mostly believes the G20 goals are actually
"mission impossible."
The G20
declaration looks splendid. The leaders of the world's leading economies
expressed hope for the global economy to grow additional 2.1% within five
years, equivalent to increasing the global economic scale by additional US$2
trillion within five years. But the World Economic Forum has pointed out a
crisis of insufficient global leadership to resolve the world's social and
economic problems. The British prime minister, David Cameron, published an
article in which he noted that global trade talks have stalled while the Ebola
outrebak in West Africa, conflict in the Middle East and Russia's illegal
intervention in Ukraine are all contributing to a dangerous backdrop of
instability and uncertainty. He believes red warning lights are once again
flashing on the dashboard of the global economy. Britain's central bank also
lowered its next year economic growth forecast from 3% to 2.9%.
The
outside world is pessimistic about the economic goals stated at the G20 Summit.
Its concrete measures include the establishment of a global infrastructure
center to coordinate and match different conditions in each nation in a bid to
push for balanced global economic growth. These measures are either too vague
or face heavy obstacles. They are far less concrete than China's announcement
at the APEC forum that it would use US$50 billion to set up the Asian
Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB) and invest US$40 billion in setting up a
Silk Road fund for its new international trade initiatives.
Similarly,
the Doha Development Agenda (DDA) orchestrated by the World Trade Organization,
aiming to promote global trade liberalization, has not proceeded smoothly as
each country has concerns over its own interests. The DDA also advocated a plan
to crack down on tax evasion by multinational companies — a move that would
surely ease global income imbalance and help fuel the finances of each country,
but which is far more easily said than done.
Moreover,
the G20 Summit reiterated its pledge to resolve the challenges from abnormal
weather patterns arising from global climate change, the first time the energy
issue has been placed on the agenda by demanding the energy ministers of each
country hold meetings to discuss possible resolutions. However, just as with
promoting trade liberalization, each country has different concerns over its
own interests, making consensus all but impossible.
On the
surface, the agenda of the world's leading economies from the G7 to G20 has
embraced included all kinds of key issues, but its members are — by definition
— chiefly rich and developed countries, at a stage of development and with
concerns an interests quite different from developing countries. The results
produced by every G20 summit therefore are difficult to compare with those of
the APEC summit and even other regional economic organizations such as the
ASEAN (Association of Southeast Asian Nations) Plus Three Summit, which are
setting the tone and the pace for the direction of development in the most
populaous part of the world.
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