Indonesia’s G20 Win: behind-the-scenes gatherings and unity in a time when global governance needs it most – and now to India

Dominating our smartphone screens, televisions, and front pages were photos of Justin Trudeau, Xi Jinping, Joe Biden, and Giorgia Meloni in traditional Indonesian attire, participating in a ceremonial mangrove tree planting event and gathering late night to discuss the missiles that killed two Poles, contemplating potential next steps using NATO’s Article 4. These leaders are – whether they want to be or not – celebrities. They are simultaneously praised and critiqued depending on who is watching them. Yet, what is not seen by mainstream audiences, perhaps even those more politically astute, is the intricate machine of behind-the-scenes work taking place throughout 257 meetings between December 2021 and December 2022 under Indonesia’s presidency of the G20 Summit.

In 2011, the Director of the Global Summitry Project, Alan Alexandroff, wrote about the notion of the G20 not being solely about its leaders, but rather surrounding the Leaders’ Summit an array of complementary “personal representatives, ministers, other officials, IFIs, IOs, [and] global regulators that make the G[20] system work – or not”. Whether the G20 is successful (a subjective term, in any case), is a different conversation.

Alexandroff’s Iceberg Theory of Global Governance positions the G20 Leaders’ Summit at its tip, but the vast bulk of the iceberg is situated below the surface, and often goes unnoticed by the majority of observers and experts.

This underwater all-encompassing mass is formed by numerous assemblies: from Ministerial meetings regarding health, environment and climate, women’s empowerment, trade investment and industry, the energy transition, development, labor, research and innovation, and tourism; to Finance Ministers and Central Bank Governor meetings, Finance-Health Deputies meetings, joint Sherpa and Finance Deputies meetings, individual Sherpa meetings, Foreign Ministers meetings, G20 Digital Ministers meetings, and Education Ministers meetings; and lastly, engagement group gatherings (including the U20, B20 on climate/energy, integrity, compliance, and business leaders; the T20, with numerous recommendations from think tanks around the world, the Y20, with priority areas on digital transformation and youth empowerment, and the L20 Employment Summit).

It would be hard to contest that the G20 indeed has been a platform that has developed and advanced key collaborative actions toward policies and priorities, from the Leader Declaration identifying the Pandemic Fund, the Financial Intermediary Funds for Pandemic Prevention, which employs the World Bank and World Health Organization.

The incoming G20 Troika – Indonesia, India and Brazil – will mark a unique shift in global governance deliberations. It will be led by three Global South countries with emerging large market economies hosting the year-long activities. The hosting will pass from India in 2023, Brazil in 2024, and South Africa in 2025.

We anticipate this three-year spread of Global South presidencies will tackle issues that have been brushed to the side or missed in other G20 Summits. This is certainly a significant step in the effort to construct a multilateral network to seek mutually beneficial responses to growing challenges impacting all countries.

The Financial Times released an article following Indonesia’s Leaders’ Summit, deeming its outcomes “remarkable”. Russia, represented by its Minister of Foreign Affairs, Sergei Lavrov, seemed isolated on the world stage as China put forth a more neutral stance in its support towards Moscow. Xi commented that his administration “resolutely opposes attempt[s] to politicize food and energy issues or use them as tools and weapons”.

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A Reform Agenda for China’s G20 Summit

Chengdu FM July 2016 copy

Coordination and harmonization are keys to collective action in global governance.  The jury remains out as to exactly what China’s hosting can accomplish with respect to either.

ANU’s Adam Triggs recently wrote that there were only three practical things that any G20 Leaders’ summit can accomplish:

… it can share information and best practice policies between countries; it can reform global governance by either reforming existing institutions like the IMF or creating new ones; or it can undertake what Oxford University’s David Vines calls ‘concerted unilateralism’, where countries implement policies (fiscal, monetary or structural) to suit their own economies, but do so collectively.

As a number of us suggested in our V20 Hangzhou gathering at Zhejiang daxue in the spring, Leaders also can, and should extend, their efforts beyond what is described above. Indeed in our collective view there is nothing more critical than having G20 Leaders direct their message to their own publics.  They need to signal their publics as to what is critical in their G20 efforts.  As our Blue Report to the Chinese leadership urged:

Together, G20 leaders can make clear and powerful statements which can signal the path of economic progress to all actors around the world. … Leaders at G20 Summits can strengthen their connection with their publics by devoting more attention to the content and the modes of communications from the summit platform.  … Key ideas could be summarized and Leaders could speak in more direct ways to their publics.  … G20 Leaders understand that globalization requires fair and updated rules that can elicit trust, a sense of fairness, and certainty.

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The ‘Season of Summits’ continues

8th Round S&ED June 2016 (Xinhua)Well really no sooner had the G7 at Ise-Shima Summit (May 26th-27th) in Japan concluded, then our attention was redirected to the US-China 8th S&ED (Security and Economic Dialogue) that concluded in Beijing on June 7th.  

The annual meeting is a chance to take the temperature once again of US-China relations. The Summit, as the name implies is made up of two tracks – the Strategic Track led by the US Secretary of State, John Kerry and State Councilor Yang Jiechi and each is a special representative to their respective leader.  Meanwhile the Economic Track was led by US Treasury Secretary Jacob Lew and Chinese Vice Premier Wang Yang.  

Even a quick read of the two communiques reveals just how different the tracks are.  The Strategic Dialogue took some 19 pages to report on its collective efforts, while the Economic Track took a mere 3.  

It is clear that the US came at the economic discussions urging changes and reforms to Chinese economic behavior and bringing the complaints and difficulties that US businesses have, and continue to face, in China. From the media report, below from the  the NYT,  it is clear that there is growing frustration in the US business community over the  array of regulations that inhibit US business interests in China:

James McGregor, Greater China chairman for communications consultancy APCO Worldwide, who attended a Tuesday event for executives with senior U.S. and Chinese officials, said executives were blunt in stressing how negative things were becoming for foreign companies in China.

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Moving Forward Incrementally – The G20 Continues

Finance Ministers and Central Bankers G20 Meeting Moscow July 2013

Finance Ministers and Central Bankers Moscow July 2013 Image Credit: x.dawn.com

The Finance Ministers and Central Bankers of the G20 met as scheduled in Moscow at the end of the week.  This periodic meeting is just a part, though a key part, of the “iceberg” that is global summitry today.  A fascinating factoid – this meeting of “finance” officials does not generally include the central bank officials when it gathers at the actual G20 Leaders Summit.  Given the key role that central bankers have been playing in trying to “right” the global economy, that probably should come to an end.  But in any case their communiqué underlined the Iceberg Theory that I and others have identified for some time.

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