G-20 summit’s real success

Irrespective of what emerged from the G-20 summit in Osaka, holding such a high-stake meeting by leaders of 19 powerful countries and the European Union remains pivotal in forging better international relations for the entire world.

Other than the fact that the participating countries account for 80 per cent of the world economic output and two-thirds of the world's population, the G-20 nations have all the tools and powers to determine the course of the international community on issues that transcend financial and economic matters.

No wonder the meetings on the sidelines of the summit by world leaders are so critical, as they ended up calling all the shots at the summit at the end of the day.

President Donald Trump hurriedly met with Russian President Vladimir Putin to set the stage for their future relations.

Chinese President Xi Jinping’s meeting with Trump was even more important, as it ushered a breakthrough in the trade standoff between the US and China. Even though the one-on-one meeting between the two leaders did not "finish up" the job of concluding a total trade agreement, the fact that President Trump described his meeting with the Chinese leader as highly successful and led to the suspension of adding any more tariffs on China suggests that a breakthrough in trade talks is imminent.

As expected, global trade issues dominated the deliberations of world leaders, on the top of which was the tariff war initiated by Trump on China last year. Now that the tariff war has ended, the world can breathe a sigh of relief and the global economy can also expect a lift off from stagnation.

The agenda of the summit naturally covered other critical global concerns, such as climate change and the future of the Paris accord on global warming, on which the US remains at loggerheads with the international community.

It turned out that Trump was the only world leader not to have reaffirmed the commitment to the Paris agreement. Yet the pressure on the US to join the international community on combating climate change is unrelenting and increasing all the time until Trump is convinced of the global will on climate change.

Regional flashpoints were also discussed by the participating heads of state, including the increasing tension in the Gulf region. As Chinese leader Xi commented on Friday on the sidelines of the summit, the Arab Gulf tensions make the entire region "standing at a crossroads of war and peace".

The mere personal contacts between world leaders is enough to cool off tensions between their countries and beyond and set the stage for peaceful resolution of at least some of the simmering regional conflicts.

Yet by all accounts, the successful and highly-praised meeting between Trump and Xi to end their trade differences made the G-20 summit a real success. In fact, the G-20 summit ended on a positive note, as trade issues that affect the entire global economy seem to have gotten a major relief.