China’s Role in the World Architecture After the G20 Hangzhou Summit

By Guan Pingpu and others, People's Daily



China’s Role in the World Architecture After the G20 Hangzhou Summit

By Guan Pingpu and others, People's Daily

I. Building a Garden of Flowers for all Countries to Share

In the face of the developing and evolving world economic situation, China is doing its best to provide more public goods for the international community.

Historians have used the "sea with waves rising one after another" as a metaphor of human history. The changing world architecture will always push some countries onto the high tide. Having entered 21st Century, this brave high tide-rider is called China

Eight years ago, the G20 finance ministers meeting was upgraded to the G20 Summit, and in the following years in London and Pittsburgh, the Second Summit and Third Summit was held respectively. The fifth paragraph of the Pittsburgh Summit Statement was as short as two words: "It works". Some scholars make the analysis that it takes just two years time for the G20 to curb the spread of the rare financial crisis in one hundred years, and the secondary reason is that the emerging market economies represented by China have participated in the process.

Emerging market economies and a large number of developing countries have achieved rapid development, and their international influence has been strengthened continuously, which is the most revolutionary change in the international power balance since the modern times. As president Xi Jinping judges that the current world architecture is in profound changes, the global management system reform is at a historical turning point; to overcome the global economic downturn, find a new growth momentum, and effectively coordinate policies of various countries, the demand is in search for more effective management program in course of changes.

Reviewing the historical trajectory of the global management system change for more than three centuries, the changes in the international order had never been out of the shadow of rivalry for hegemony. Until the end of World War II, constructing a fair and just international order under the United Nations purposes, through dialogue and consultation to deal with differences and disputes between countries in a peaceful manner become the world trend. For the first time, mankind has tasted the fruits of long peace, and a possibility to share lasting peace.

However, look at the world today, on the one hand, protectionism is rising, international trade and investment is sluggish, the development of the multilateral trading system is facing a bottleneck. According to statistics, since 2008, the G20 members launched a total of more than 3500 new protectionist policies, 81% of which is still in operation. On the other hand, geopolitical factors get perplexing, regional hot issues and global challenges such as political security conflict and unrest, refugee crisis, climate change and terrorism, etc., continue to highlight and cast a shadow over the global governance. As the economic recovery now is very fragile, if trade decreasing, disputes expanding, missing coordination of macroeconomic policy are allowed, the "new mediocrity" in the global economic growth is likely to evolve into a "new ideal".

To keep up with the pace of the times, we should have entered the 21st Century both physically and mentally, President Xi’s statement reflects the common aspirations of various countries to improve the global management system. To maintain peaceful and stable international environment, to jointly build a global partnership of win-win cooperation and to jointly improve the global economic management --"China’s approach" for the G20 Hangzhou Summit -- are recognized and appreciated by the participants.

The future can be hardly predicted, but can be shaped. To rely on innovation to open up the source of growth, to open up further to the outside world to expand development space, to strengthen integrative ability by relying on interoperability, to consolidate the win-win foundation with inclusiveness -- President Xi Jinping points out the direction for promoting the healthy development of world economy. … Putting the development progress in a prominent position in the global macro-policy framework for the first time, making connected action plans for attaining the 2030 Sustainable Development Agenda for the first time, issuing the chairman statement on the progress achieved for climate changes in the G20 history for the first time, … Since taking over the G20 chairmanship, as a Chinese saying goes, people with petty shrewdness attend trivial matters while those with greater wisdom attend to governance of institutions. China, facing the evolution and development of the world economic situation, has been constantly trying to make efforts for these firsts and provide more public goods for the international community.

The new mechanism and a new initiative advocated by China are neither to reinvent the wheels, nor target any other country, nor to build China’s backyard garden, but to develop a flowers garden for all countries to share. President Xi Jinping states to the world. As the first state to sign the UN Charter, and as the current international system participant, builder and contributor, China sincerely hopes to work together with other countries to promote the global management system to get further improved, to become more compatible with the world growing consumption requirements, and more conducive to the common development of all countries in the world.

In China’s view, today’s world is no longer in the era of rivalry between Athens and Sparta, economic globalization is increasingly deepening, all countries closely connected together, no state can afford the cost of major powers conflict and confrontation. Only we jointly promote improvement instead of reinventing the global management system, and build a mankind community of shared destiny instead of shifting troubles onto others and engaging in vicious competition, will mankind have a bright future.

II. China’s Growth will Benefit the World More

As China is on a new starting point of having in-depth interaction with the world, and opening still wider to the world, Chinese development will more and more benefit other countries, and provide more opportunities for them on the Chinese Express.

After 38 years of reform and opening up, China's growth has brought to the world too many surprises. Dr. Kissinger admits that during his first visit to China he never imagined China's strength position in the international system could have such a huge leap. China, as the world's second largest economy, the world's largest manufacturing country, the world's second largest consumer market, more than 170 million highly educated and professional talents, over 20% contribution rate to the global economic growth. ... For decades, the Chinese people are marching forward in exploration, working really hard, and moving toward common prosperity in the process of going to the world, which itself is a magnificent contribution to mankind.

An important feature of economic globalization era transcends the past development model that "your development is my nightmare". Reasonable allocation of resources in the global scope and building industrial ecological chains by various countries enable countries to have mutual benefit and win-win outcomes between them. China has been in the world economic cycle for the past 40 years, the vast Chinese market attracts many foreign investors, high quality and inexpensive China-manufactured products sweep the world, the strong power of the "world factory" leads the entire chains boom from upstream to downstream.

China can have current achievements, which cannot be separated from its own hard work, but also benefited from world environment for the peaceful development, as well as from the shared dividend of the economic globalization. For this reason, China is more heartfelt and self-conscious on the issue of promoting the world-wide common development. From building a new system of open economy to accelerating the implementation of the strategy of free trade zones, from promoting "the Belt and Road" construction to establishing the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank, the Chinese not only firmly grasp the development key, but also hopes to precisely open the lock for the world development.

"World prosperity" and "China’s growth" play the symphonic unison, "world dilemma" and "China’s difficulties" are not separated by any wall. The global growth is rather weak, and China goes all out for "steady growth"; the world's major economies worry so much on the exacerbated aging that "they have more grey hair on the head", the "grey-hair wave" also worries various aspects of the Chinese society; as global protectionism tends to rise, small business owners in China’s Wenzhou immediately frown; when the Wall Street decides to pierce the bubble, China’s government at all levels are "actively de-leveraging". ... The economic linkage with deep integration, sharing weal and woe, and there is no exception in the face of difficulties. Strengthening the interconnected policy measures, consolidating interconnected infrastructure, and promoting interconnected win-win outcome, the "three interconnections" President Xi Jinping proposed is to work with other countries together, to coagulate interconnected vitality, and to achieve interconnected development in the world economic resonance.

For thirty-year rapid development almost from scratch, few people could understand better than the Chinese the significance of the development; for thirty-year reform and opening up in the course of globalization, few people could know better than the Chinese the value of opening up and inclusiveness. Pass on your development experiences to us, Tanzanian PM Majaliwa said. To share results more, and better benefit the world, China’s contributions speak louder than words.

III. China contributes its wisdom to global governance

Behind the flexible and practical solution is the Chinese resolute opposition to the dominative and exclusive thinking, and the strong support for the concept of rising and falling together and win-win outcome.

The concluded G20 Hangzhou Summit has identified the direction for the world economy, innovated growth mode, and improved the global economic and financial governance, revived the international trade and investment as the two engines, promoted inclusive and interconnected development, President Xi Jinping in his Concluding Remarks at the closing Ceremony of the Summit relays the Hangzhou consensus of global governance, and highlights China’s wisdom for harmonious symbiosis.

The theme and topics China proposed very much fit into the needs of the current world economy, can be described as "timely", Eurasia Research Institute expert H. de Keyser commented and continued the Hangzhou Summit showed precise grasp of the global trend and made a "prescription" for the world economy accordingly, helped to make a timely plan for global development future, and China will become a global leader because it provides solution ideas for the global economic uncertainty and the status of political conflict.

With deepening development of the economic globalization, the interests and destiny of all countries are more closely linked, many problems are no longer limited to one country, and no country can respond to all challenges without working with others. Therefore, in essence, the global governance is embodied as a pursuit of order, and the core is how to get rid of the plight of collective action institutionally. Looking at today's world, although there is signs of change in Western countries-led global governance system, because of the limitation and interference by the domestic political and economic reality, some major countries show serious short-sighted view in global governance, lack of long-term consideration and global perspective, economic globalization and the "politics localization" highlight contradictions, highly efficient organizations collective actions are often faced with the choice contradictions and logical dilemmas

Since the world is so big and has so many problems, the international community is looking forward to hearing China’s voice, and to see the China’s program, so China cannot be absent. It is noticed that in modern times both the French "Declaration on the Rights of Man and Citizen", and the United Nations "Universal Declaration of Human Rights" after the WWII quote the well-known phrase of the "Analects of Confucius -- do not unto others as you would not have them do onto you. In the Chinese culture and world view, harmonious co-existence is the fundamental keyword. From the "benevolence", "people being the basic “and "true with one’s words “to "harmony without blind following", "expecting assistance from friends on travel", etc., this Chinese philosophy of daily life has injected new spirit and provided a new idea to improve the current global governance.

To find out the similarities in confrontations and conflicts, to guide the parties to think in the opposite position, and to subtly solve differences until a satisfactory result is achieved by all sides concerned - in the eyes of many international observers, whether to mediate regional disputes, or advocate solutions to resolve a crisis, the Chinese approaches are always "fresh and new". Behind the flexible and practical solution is China’s resolutely abandoning dominant and exclusive thinking, and strongly supportive of the concept of win-win cooperation.

From the "Asian community of shared destiny" to "human community of shared destiny”, which points out that countries, be it big or small, strong or weak, rich or poor, should work as guardians and facilitators to maintain peace, rather than help in the work one way and hinder it another way, but should complement each other. Having on a number of diplomatic occasions stressed that the world affairs need to be discussed by all countries, and advocated attaching importance to interests but more to friendship in international cooperation, ... China's ideas and solutions for global governance promoted by President Xi Jinping, without exception, on different international occasions over the past 3 years, produced a strong resonance of the audience. The reason is it represents China’s voice, having washed away egoism and utilitarian value, and bridged the gap caused by confrontation and conflict.

Being marginalized for a long time in global governance system, China suffered the pain of unfair rules of the game. One hundred year ago at the Paris Conference on Peace, China’s diplomat Gu Weijun wrote to his friends that China attended the Conference as a winner but its territory was divided as the defeated Germany. At the Yalta Conference in 1945, China again was a winner at the battleground but a loser at the diplomatic court. Today, China has been a “host" on various world's major occasions, the world's scenery is indeed not the same with China or without China. From the establishment of Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank to creation of a BRICS Bank, from hosting the APEC meeting to hosting the G20 Summit, targeted at the current status of major transnational and world-wide growing challenges, China, with hitherto unprecedented confidence and strength, continuously puts forward the "Chinese program", with "Chinese wisdom" to improve the global governance mechanism. Meanwhile, China also uses its own experience to tell the world: a fair and just "round table" is often more important.

However, there should not be only a single peak, nor an isolated island completely cut off from the rest of the world in the course of world development. In the waves of economic globalization, only mutual benefit and complementary support to each other and every wave showing its peculiarity, can the rolling waves of diversified development be formed. China is willing to put up a platform and pave the way for the global governance, seek tangible benefits to all countries and peoples in the world. As president Xi Jinping says in his closing remarks that may the Hangzhou Summit "become a new starting point".