With this year's summit season coming to an end, Turkey will officially hand over the G20 hosting baton to China on 1 December 2015. The Hangzhou Leaders' Summit has already been announced for 4 and 5 September 2016, slightly earlier than previous years to avoid clashing with the US presidential election in November.
Although we are still waiting for China to release the official priorities document that will set out its goals in detail, President Xi Jinping did take the opportunity at the Antalya Summit to sketch an outline of what China's G20 year will look like.
G20 host countries have a habit of reconfiguring the same fundamental issues to suit their narrative. As the 2015 host, Turkey focused the G20 agenda around three 'i's: inclusiveness, investment, and implementation.
China, not to be outdone, has linked its presidency with four 'i's. Xi stated in Antalya that China wants to see a global economy that is 'innovative, invigorated, inter-connected and inclusive'. The sequence is important, as innovation is a new focus for both China and the G20.
Each of these 'i's can be linked to the acronym of GOOD that has been unofficially associated with China's G20 presidency; innovative Growth, Organizational reform, Open trade and investment, and sustainable Development. Chinese officials have used the GOOD acronym in meetings and, even though it's not to be found in official communications, it remains a useful guide to the priorities framing China's thinking.
China believes there is too much emphasis on weak demand as the cause of sluggish growth. Therefore, it wants to use its G20 host year to focus on the supply side, concentratating on innovation and technology as a means of creating growth. This also fits with China's domestic strategy of moving up the value chain and improving the quality of exports.
As for organisational reform or 'invigorating' governance, this reflects the preoccupation of China and other emerging economies with their exclusion from existing governance bodies. Long-stalled IMF reform is a particular sore point. [fold]
There is speculation the IMF is about to add the yuan to its basket of reserve currencies, but it will take more than such symbolic reform to satisfy China beyond the short term. Similarly, China remains disappointed with the World Bank shift in voting share in 2010. Despite some changes, the Bank still has a US-appointed president and emerging markets are underrepresented.
Wang Xiaolong, the newly appointed G20 special envoy from the Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs, emphasised that we need a more 'inter-connected' regime because the 'two engines' of the global economy, trade and investment, are not working as they should. It is well-known that world trade is slowing more than global GDP.
He confirmed that G20 trade ministers would meet in China next year (as they did in Turkey and Australia). However, if China wants to progress trade, it will need to convene a leader-level discussion on fixing the World Trade Organisation.
We might also assume China's G20 agenda will continue the focus on infrastructure investment, a feature of both the Australian and Turkish presidencies.
Turkey's inclusiveness priority did emphasise development, but China seems to be taking this further with sustainable development as a fourth priority. In the Chinese narrative, development is another key engine of growth, particularly 'shared development'. However, we do not know yet what this means for the G20 Development Working Group and whether development will become part of the core agenda.
Turkey struggled with its three 'i's and was unable to focus the agenda, eventually producing a disappointing communiqué.
China, with four 'i's and a 'GOOD', will have to be clearly communicate what it wants to achieve, and be careful its messages do not get lost in translation. We will have to wait to see if the priorities document contains yet another slogan or acronym.
It is unrealistic for any host to progress every item on the G20 agenda. Given the breadth of issues Turkey is bequeathing to China, the new G20 taskforce will have to be disciplined.
The best thing for the Australian G20 legacy would be if China revives a narrative on growth and runs a tight ship. Although Australia has departed the governing G20 troika, we should not go quietly back to the sidelines. We have a responsibility to encourage China to strengthen the forum and deliver real outcomes.
Photo: ChinaFotoPress via Getty Images
