Gathering for the G20 Osaka Summit
With this post RisingBRICSAM ‘returns to the air’. First up are the Vision 20 reflections on the impending G20 Osaka Summit. The Vision 20 principals include: Colin Bradford, Brookings, Yves Tiberghien, University of British Columbia and Alan Alexandroff, Munk School of Global Affairs & Public Policy, University of Toronto.
As we have expressed in the past, “Our ‘Visioning the Future Project’ focuses on defining the future by building a new blueprint of values and organizing principles for the global system.” The V20 is committed to a well-defined goal: a new and better articulation of the relationships between global, national, and local levels. We also emphasize new avenues for dialogue across cultural, regional, and North-South divides to avoid
a downward cycle of mutual misperceptions. The V20 has urged, principally through the Blue Reports, that G20 Leaders reach out with far greater efforts and with accessible messages that can better speak to their own publics and work to assist their publics to understand the collaborative efforts these Leaders and their officials strive to achieve through the G20.
And now to our examination of the Osaka G20 Summit.
The problems abound. And, not unreasonably there is much skepticism that the G20 meeting soon to convene in Osaka and led by Japan will be in any position to resolve the various problems that face the Global Order. As the post-war global trading and economic order fragments under the ‘America First’ actions of Donald Trump the need for the G20 Leaders to rally around common guiding principles, or at least guardrails, is highly desired. Yet, while the G20 plenary is likely to inch forward on a few key files under the Japanese, such as possibly ocean plastics, a road map in AI ethics, principles for quality infrastructure and encouraging for IMF reforms, the trade clash between the US and China is likely to ‘suck the oxygen out of the plenary setting’ in this year’s Summit. FT’s Alan Beattie, long a G20 skeptic, had this almost classic comment the other day: “Chances of success over the next few days: slender bordering on skeletal. Imperative at least to try: overwhelming.”
There is indeed a surfeit of problems and near crises that face G20 leaders. None of these problems, of course, is more damaging than the Trump initiated trade and technology war with China. This growing tariff tit-for-tat has led most analysts and journalists to focus on the announced bilateral meetings of leaders, none more so than the Trump and Xi Jinping sit down. Nevertheless, The Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe has identified a host of matters some of which he hopes will attract enough agreement to move forward in tackling the many challenges of global governance today. Besides his targeting digital data flows, as noted above, he has ‘prioritized’ a series of other matters: removing structural impediments to growth, reforming the global trading system, combating climate change and in particular marine plastics pollution, adjusting employment policy to reflect aging societies, empowering women in the workforce, advancing sustainable development and achieving universal health coverage. In fact, the Japanese determination to identify a wide number of problems has drawn criticism particularly for grouping climate change as just one of a number pressing issues. But clearly there is Japanese desire to move the yardsticks of global governance in era of ‘America First’ and the determination seemingly by President Trump to undermine the multilateral order at the time of growing great power rivalry.
Many see the opening to WTO reform, declared in Argentina in the Leaders’ Declaration, as the starting point for advancing not just reform but a way forward, or back, to a rules-based multilateral trade system:
27. International trade and investment are important engines of growth, productivity, innovation, job creation and development. We recognize the contribution that the multilateral trading system has made to that end. The system is currently falling short of its objectives and there is room for improvement. We therefore support the necessary reform of the WTO to improve its functioning. We will review progress at our next Summit.
But is WTO reform the way back to a rules-based multilateral order. The Editorial Board of the rather influential EastAsiaForum thinks so. As the Board prepares for the G20 in Japan it writes:
Few G20 countries do well in bilateral deals with the superpowers, including the superpowers themselves. This means all G20 countries have a strong national interest in multilateralism. These countries do best when the world comes together to agree collectively on the rules for trade, investment, finance, people-to-people links and dispute resolution and therefore have a paramount self-interest in a strong, effective G20.
But the need for WTO reform and the determination not to accept Trump’s bilateral ‘America First’ strategy in trade and pretty much all else is not the same thing. In reality WTO reform confounds two related but yet distinct issues. There are the limitations of the dispute resolution system, though Trump’s criticism of the decisions seems historical and not relevant. The system has moved on. Further, even were we to resolve some of the issues – let’s say the dispute resolution issues, that resolution would not eliminate the US-China trade and technology war. The weaponizing of tariffs by Donald Trump is an issue that today goes beyond just WTO reform. In fact, the Trump tariffs against China and many other countries represent a serious and damaging breach of WTO consistent policy. The stakes for the global trading system are high indeed.
What then should we hope for from the Osaka G20? First, we have to hope that the Abe government is willing to tackle the bad behavior of not only China but also of the United States. Take for example the Chair’s Statement from G20 Ministerial Meeting on Trade and Digital Economy on June 8th and 9th, 2019, in Ibaraki Tsukuba, Japan. Is the glass half empty, or half full? Well, the statement tackles the failure of China to resolve the excess steel capacity issue. And, on the other hand it also addresses the need to strengthen multilateral trade. The Chair notes: “Many Ministers affirmed the need to improve collectively the trade and investment environment. The importance of ensuring that trade measures be WTO consistent was emphasized by many Ministers.” The reference to WTO consistent measures is a gentle criticism of the United States’ efforts to raise tariffs on the very questionable basis of “national security”. The statement seems to mete out criticism to both sides. Many G20 members actually pressed the Japanese Chair over many hours to reflect a much stronger position on current US trade actions. The Chair was unwilling to move, with the goal to avoid isolating the US. There is then a more general fear that Abe and his ministers and officials will be unwilling to press the case against Trump and American officials over particularly his trade inconsistent tariffs. And even if they did agree to have a stronger Chair Statement supported by the G19, would it succeed in stopping the US from damaging the global trading system this Fall?
There is reason to be concerned about Japan’s willingness to stand up to the Trump Administration. As pointed out by Leslie Hook in the FT “This year, the current draft by Japan caters to the US position and avoids calling for reducing emissions or “decarbonization”. This is seen as a dramatic contrast to the Germany’s determination to maintain support – at least for the G19 (minus the U.S.) – for the Paris Climate Agreement which in Hamburg at the G20 in 2017 was described as “irreversible”.
Are we therefore at a loss for the G20 leadership? Or as Jennifer Morgan the head of Greenpeace International declares (Hook, 2019): “This really demonstrates the irrelevance of the G20 in addressing the world’s largest crisis at this point in time”.
No, we think not. The most senior of us has followed this leader-led summit from the days before it was just that – a leaders’ summit. For the first time we saw in one organization both the more established and the rising economies of the Global South. This is a leader-led forum that meets at least annually. Think if there was no such organization today to at least ‘air’ the critical issues facing the leading states. It is not ad hoc. And we are. More than aware that decisions today can be committed to by something less than all the leaders. We and others have urged that states committed to a course of action take – action. In our most recent annual Blue Report – this year for officials from Japan – the V20 urged that leaders focus on what we described as ‘effective multilateralism’. “We assess that ‘effective multilateralism’ today resides in those fora and coalitions that are prepared to move forward on policy and act on a collective action basis whether they include all, or not. Formal or informal institutions are not the limiting concern.” Collective action does not require consensus. It requires commitment. Let’s see what leaders can do in Osaka.
Works Cited
ANU Editorial Board. 2019. “The world has a simple request for Japan: don’t drop the ball at the Osaka G20 summit”. EastAsiaForum. June 24, 2019. https://www.eastasiaforum.org/2019/06/24/the-world-has-a-simple-request-for-japan-dont-drop-the-ball-at-the-osaka-g20-summit/
Beattie, Alan. 2019. “Japan plans to stop the global digital economy breaking apart”. FT. June 24, 2019. https://www.ft.com/content/578e72b6-9679-11e9-8cfb-30c211dcd229
Hook, Leslie. 2019. “G20 plays down commitment to climate change action”. FT. June 25, 2019. https://www.ft.com/content/65c7501e-9692-11e9-8cfb-30c211dcd229?shareType=nongift
Vision20. 2019. “Effective Multilateralism”: 2019 VISION20-Brookings Blue Report. April 2019. https://www.thevision20.org/