Global governance

The Group of 7 are relatively aligned in their perceptions of global challenges, particularly when it comes to strategic competitors such as China and Russia, but the same perceptions do not hold true when it comes to the remaining members of the bigger Group of 20.

Amid a world shaken by global events, President Jokowi has done his fair share of shuttle diplomacy in the lead-up to the G20 Summit in Bali later this year. While Indonesia has the potential to play an intermediary role among global powers, it remains circumspect and looks to push forward the G20 agenda in incremental and achievable steps.

Economics professor Zhang Rui identifies the main crises faced by global economies today, their various effects, and how they are interrelated. How will governments handle these challenges and work together to ease the impact of what seems to be a perfect storm of negative factors?

Abe’s major accomplishments are in his diplomacy and security policies, and these are the areas that will be highlighted when history passes judgement on him. PM Fumio Kishida has every reason to pick up where Abe left off, seeking to expand this grand vision of the Indo-Pacific and keep the unreliable US in check, but the biggest obstacle will be establishing a consensus within the ruling party.

Analyst Zheng Weibin notes that the NATO summit in Madrid showed the US’s lack of awareness of what Asian countries really want — namely, not to take sides in the US-China competition. Such lack of judgement will hamper their policy of reinvigorating their relations with Asia. Will they be able to realise the incongruence in their policies and change course?

Hong Kong businessman and political figure Lew Mon-hung notes that China used to have a strong sense of right and wrong, with values of righteousness and morality. However, looking at China’s reaction to the war in Ukraine, it seems that these values have been abandoned. And this can only lead to a shift in the progress that China has made over the past 40 years.

China’s coal and electricity shortage last year and the current impact of the Russia-Ukraine war on global energy supply have highlighted China’s energy security concerns and the risks to fulfilling its climate goals. Nevertheless, while EAI academic Chen Gang believes that China is unlikely to significantly reduce its consumption of fossil fuels in the short term, he notes that there remain several drivers that will accelerate China's clean energy transition.

The establishment of the United Nations was a major step towards forging a new world order after the chaos of World War II. For China, it was a chance to recover from the humiliation of the two Opium Wars, the First Sino-Japanese War and World War II, where it was forced to cede territory and submit to Western powers. Not only was China able to sign equal treaties to take back its land, it became a permanent member of the UN Security Council, and took its place on the world stage.

Former journalist and MP Goh Choon Kang asserts that out of the 110 invitees for this week’s Summit for Democracy, more than a few countries probably chose to go along out of courtesy. In the main, the international community subscribes to inclusiveness and win-win multilateralism. Efforts to delineate countries based on ideology or values will not go down very well. If anything, the invite and non-invite lists speak of the US’s own geopolitical calculations, not least its search for an added means to contain China.