The G20: Emerging Chinese Leadership in Global Governance?
| Published date | 01 November 2017 |
| Date | 01 November 2017 |
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1111/1758-5899.12504 |
The G20: Emerging Chinese Leadership in
Global Governance?
Xiao Ren
Fudan University
Abstract
China today is playing an increasingly prominent role in the world in general and global governance in particular. What is
revealing was China’s experience in the G20, especially when China held the 2016 presidency for the G20 Hangzhou Summit.
This article first examines leadership in international relations and then analyzes China’s ideas and actions as the G20 presi-
dent. It comes to the conclusion that China has played a leadership role throughout the process. That experience also points
to the direction for the future of China in global governance.
Policy Implications
•Effective global governance needs leadership.
•There must be will, power, and capability for a leadership role.
•China has an important role to play in global governance.
•Global governance needs a larger role for China.
Is China a status quo power, or a revisionist one? This chal-
lenging question has triggered a series of studies.
1
As a
Canadian observer has pointed out, in a decade’s time,
‘China went from being an irresponsible stakeholder in the
mid-2000s to now being seen as the linchpin of global eco-
nomic stability’. China could be the most powerful voice
heralding the social and economic benefits of globalization,
inviting countries to join free trade pacts that it hosts and
organizes, and investing in developing countries to gain
market access.
2
This development has become all the more
significant when doubts questioning the merits of globaliza-
tion mount in the United States and elsewhere in the West.
For this author, China is a ‘reform-minded status quo
power’and China’s experience with the G20 (and the G8+5
before it) is revealing (Ren, 2015). Evan S. Medeiros (2009, p.
250) stresses that ‘China ... is not trying to tear down or
radically revise the current constellation of global rules,
norms, and institutions on economic and security affairs’.
Likewise, Mingjiang Li (2012) affirms that China’s rise hap-
pened within the existing international system. China har-
bors no grand revisionist ambition to overthrow the existing
international system. China would be happy if it could play
a bigger role in the existing system and is seeking to
achieve this goal by gradually reforming the decision-mak-
ing structure of various existing multilateral institutions and
regimes (Alexandroff, 2008). These findings indicate that
China is hoping for an incremental reform of the interna-
tional system rather than seeking any revolutionary change.
Meanwhile, China believes that the international order
should be made more just and reasonable. Holding the G20
presidency for 2016 provided China with a good opportu-
nity to come up with new ideas, shape the agenda, and
lead by example and coordination. China has helped main-
tain momentum for the G20 and boost its status as the pre-
mier platform for global economic cooperation and
governance. This paper will begin with a discussion of lead-
ership in international relations, and then elaborate on Chi-
na’s involvement in the G20, with a focus on China’s actions
during the G20 presidency in various issue areas and the
extent that China exerted a leadership role. This paper con-
cludes that China has undergone a change from a member-
ship role to leadership role within the G20 and its
implications.
Leadership and international relations
While the United States often takes its leadership role in the
world for granted and believes it is ‘bound to lead’(Nye
1990), China is much more modest and has often sought to
remove the word ‘leadership’from its statements (Medeiros
2009). When China was playing a leadership role by acting
as the host of the Six-Party talks on the Korean nuclear
problem –thus winning praises from the outside world –
Beijing would still ask itself whether it was really playing a
leadership role, no matter how successful the efforts were.
China initiated the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank
(AIIB), and, together with 56 other countries, founded the
bank in 2015. In this case, there was no doubt China played
a leadership role in the process of creating the bank. How-
ever, China is still reluctant to trumpet this success. In the
Global Policy (2017) 8:4 doi: 10.1111/1758-5899.12504 ©2017 University of Durham and John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
Global Policy Volume 8 . Issue 4 . November 2017 433
Research Article
To continue reading
Request your trial