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The View | G20 must coax a reluctant China back into the fold
- Nowadays, China seems less interested in multilateral engagement more broadly
- However, the world cannot end the pandemic, address the climate crisis or ease the energy-supply emergency without China’s active and positive contribution to the G20
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This week, G20 leaders gather in Rome for their annual summit. But will they use their stay in la grande bellezza to reconcile their differences and lay the groundwork for improved policy cooperation?
Will their private dinner reinforce progress, by enabling those who are new to the process – some participants will be meeting US President Joe Biden for the first time – to build relationships with G20 veterans?
Since the G20 became a leaders’ summit in 2008, the private dinner has become an invaluable platform for some of the world’s most powerful people to discuss, face to face, the most important issues that they and their countries are facing.
A decade ago, in Cannes, the euro-zone debt crisis dominated the dinner discussion. This year, there is no shortage of topics that will get the diners talking. The event’s host, Italian Prime Minister Mario Draghi, is keen to discuss the humanitarian and geopolitical situation in Afghanistan; in fact, he recently chaired an extraordinary meeting of G20 leaders on the topic.
The imperative of delivering vaccine doses to low-income countries is also likely to come up – about 23 billion doses are needed, and this requires coordinated effort and open trade for vaccine supply chains. And perhaps guests will consider some form of energy coordination, aimed at easing supply bottlenecks and reducing price pressures.
Of course, anyone who has ever hosted a big holiday party or family reunion knows that some topics are best avoided at the dinner table, lest the affair lose its civility. The coming G20 dinner will be no different, though the stakes are much higher.
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