So, the Vision 20 principals, Colin Bradford, Brookings, Yves Tiberghien, University of British Columbia and myself, at the Munk School of Global Affairs & Public Policy thought it would be valuable to take a second gaze at the G20 Osaka Summit. This look, of course, occurring following the conclusion of the Summit.
There is little question that the G20 was dominated by the Donald Trump’s ‘reality TV show’ – the meeting and joking with Putin, the dramatic meeting over tariffs with Xi Jinping. And, finally, but certainly not least, the dramatic ‘handshake summit’ with North Korea’s Kim Jong-un at the DMZ. In the end, there was little bandwidth left for any coverage of the collective meetings of the G20, or examination of the Leaders’ Declaration. The Oska G20 reflects the shape – read that as the fragmenting – of the Global Order. But the V20 principals thought to try and draw some conclusions where we could on the state of the order in this chaotic ‘Age of Trump’.
Our colleague, Matt Goodman from CSIS in Washington seemed to capture the architecture of this G20 Osaka gathering. Goodman (2019) described recently what he saw as the makeup of summits generally: “International summits are really two parallel events: formal proceedings in a conference room and a whirl of bilateral meetings outside.” Given the the natural bias of journalists this inside and out framing is exactly how they see it – though the formal multilateral work is not of a lot of interest to most observers. This G20 Summit really lent itself to that perspective and framing. This Summit appears to be a function of the fragmenting of the multilateral system driven by the current US President and apparently his need for the spotlight. It is also a reflection of Trump’s determination to use the international stage as his Presidential ‘Apprentice’. As David Nakamura (2019) at the WP highlighted in his Asia trip overall but the meeting with Kim at the DMZ in particular :
Yet Trump has also carefully cultivated elaborately staged moments that, strung together, reveal a president eager to play the roles of producer and director, calling the camera shots, hyping the drama, and building public expectations for a big reveal.
At the Japan G20, itself, likely the dramatic moment was Trump’s meeting with China’s Xi Jinping which led to an agreement to: restart trade negotiations between the United States and China, to not escalate tariffs while these negotiations continued, to have China rather vaguely purchase large amounts of agricultural products, and to permit, equally vaguely, American technology companies to sell technology to Huawei. Clearly this arrangement is not a conclusion to the trade war that has led to tit-for-tat tariffs but a second-best solution. Still, the US-China trade armistice alone was not the only advance in trade arrangements. For Friday witnessed a trade agreement, after an extended delay, some 20 years in fact, for the EU and Mercosur (Argentina, Brazil, Paraguay and Uruguay). This deal was the largest agreement for the EU ever. As announced by EU Jean-Claude Juncker (Darlington 2019) the president of the European Commission, this agreement signals that ” … we are sending today a strong signal with our Mercosur partners that we stand for rules-based trade.” Clearly a comment on Donald Trump’s continuing WTO inconsistent trade actions and his weaponizing of tariffs against a host of WTO members.
All of the above is largely about Trump and his unilateral and bilateral efforts in global governance. But what can we say about the Japanese effort to maintain the collective multilateral effort and to strengthen the rules-based order? The Japanese effort appears, at best, a faint-hearted one – at least to the top priority issues of trade and climate change – though more positively on the mid-level issues. But more on that in in a moment. Still the ‘faint results’ overall is a rather sad comment given that the concerted Japanese efforts not to irritate Trump and his officials. Notwithstanding such efforts, however, Abe was unable to save himself and Japan from Trump threats to the US-Japan defence arrangement. As to the two crucial multilateral efforts – the top tier issues of trade and climate change – there were, at best, muted, indeed very muted advances.
In the trade arena – the Leaders’ Declaration suggested no pointed advance in the effort to revise the WTO dispute resolution system though it gives a bit of a timeline:
8. … We reaffirm our support for the necessary reform of the World
Trade Organization (WTO) to improve its functions. We will work constructively with other WTO members, including the lead up to the the 12th WTO Ministerial Conference. We agree that action is necessary regarding the functioning of the dispute settlement system consistent with the rules as negotiated by WTO members.
With respect to climate change there was strong pressure apparently from American officials that the Declaration include no reference to the Paris Climate Change Agreement. That pressure was ultimately resisted though there was a second and strong American paragraph committing to its path of withdrawal and criticism of current efforts. Worse still, the G19 commitment to Paris was included not as a result of Japanese insistence, indeed there was an indication that Japan was prepared to exclude a statement on Paris. Rather the threat from France’s President Macron not to sign the Declaration if there was no reference to the Paris commitment ended that possibility. A a result the following was identified:
35. … Signatories to the Paris Agreement who confirmed at Buenos Aires its irreversibility and are determined to implement it, reaffirm their commitment to its full implementation, reflecting common but differentiated responsibilities and respective capabilities, in the light of different national circumstances. By 2020 we aim to communicate, update or maintain our NDCs, taking into account that further global efforts are needed. We emphasize the importance of providing financial resources to assist developing countries with respect to both mitigation and adaptation in accordance with the Paris Agreement.
This Summit underlines yet again – if the demonstration needed to be repeated – that a muted, even appeasement-like effort, as exercised by the Japanese, seldom works in the face of an aggressive member as is the case with Trump. Abe tried his best to firm up the traditional Liberal Order, yet as Daniel Sneider in Asia Times points out: “Despite this rear-guard battle for the liberal order, the dominant actors at the G20 are the standard bearers of the New Authoritarian Order, led by Russia’s Vladimir Putin, China’s Xi Jinping, and, of course, US President Donald Trump.”
In a particularly pessimistic assessment of the Osaka Summit and Japan’s actions, this by Shiro Armstrong (2019), the editor of EastAsiaForum, he declared: “The uncertainty that has clouded the global economy over the past few years is child’s play compared with what could come now without a major effort by middle powers to avert catastrophe.”
Still there are ‘mid-tier’ initiatives where progress could be secured, if not immediately, then in the near future. Such subjects include: acting to limit marine plastics litter, illegal, unreported and unregulated (IUU) fishing, digital ‘data free flows with trust’, quality infrastructure, IMF reforms with respect to concluding its quota review and governance reforms and possibly on digital taxation and base erosion and profit sharing (BEPS).
The G20 faces difficult problems. There is no substitute in global governance today, in our view, in the face of the disorder generated by Trump and his ‘America First’ efforts, not to mention his affinity for the ‘New Authoritarians’ that ‘Effective Multilateralism’, as we have argued recently in our latest Blue Report is required. Various members of the G20 that could differ from subject to subject must step up to move forward on the challenges to global governance. Yet the hosts scheduled for the G20 in the near future are a dismaying group – starting with Saudi Arabia. Limited progress may still be the dominant current in upcoming G20 summits.
Works Cited
Armstrong, Shiro. 2019. “The rules based economic disorder after Osaka G20. 2019. EastAsiaForum. June 30, 2019. https://www.eastasiaforum.org/2019/06/30/the-rules-based-economic-disorder-after-osaka-g20/#more-190964
Darlington, Shasta. 2019. “EU and Four Latin American Nations Reach Trade Deal”. NYT, June 28, 2019. https://www.nytimes.com/2019/06/28/world/americas/eu-four-latin-american-nations-trade-deal.html
Goodman, Matthew. 2019. “G20 Osaka: Inside and Out. CSIS. June 18, 2019 https://www.csis.org/analysis/g20-osaka-inside-and-out?utm_source=Members&utm_campaign=230f0a3d0a-EMAIL_CAMPAIGN_2018_11_29_08_02_COPY_01%E2%80%A6
Nakamura, David. 2019. “Beyond ‘Freedom’s Frontier,’ Trump scores his biggest live show yet in North Korea”. WP. June 30, 2019. https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/beyond-freedoms-frontier-trump-scores-his-biggest-live-show-yet/2019/06/30/269f33ec-9b07-11e9-830a-21b9b36b64ad_story.html?utm_term=.58c7fcdd389b&wpisrc=nl_most&wpmm=1
Sneider, Daniel. 2019. “G20 Osaka: The end of American leadership? An Axis of Authoritarianism – Putin, Xi and Trump – was on disturbing display”. Asia TimesJune 29, 2019. https://www.asiatimes.com/2019/06/article/g20-osaka-the-end-of-american-leadership/