Commentary: People-centered development prioritized by G20 cooperation
By Zhao Jiaming from People’s Daily
In a signed article published on Argentine mainstream newspaper Clarin ahead of his state visit to the South American country and attendance of the 13th G20 Summit, Chinese President Xi Jinping highly commended the people-centered vision for G20 cooperation as championed by Argentine President Mauricio Macri.
As for the problems that have arisen in the process of economic globalization, Xi urged G20 members to take a proactive and measured approach, act in the interest of building a community with a shared future for mankind, and pursue a more open, inclusive and balanced economic globalization in line with the principle of consultation, collaboration and benefit for all in order to serve the interests of people of all countries.
Argentina sets the theme of this year’s summit as “Building consensus for fair and sustainable development”. The ring-shaped palette in its logo represents different voices and appeals, as well as the challenges that must be conquered before a consensus on how to address global agendas is finally reached.
Development, fairness and sustainability, the theme elements of this year’s meeting, are also the priority of the Hangzhou Summit in 2016, during which Xi called on to work toward an innovative, open, interconnected and inclusive world economy.
Its core and essence is to make growth and development benefit all countries and peoples by taking innovation as the driving force, following a path of opening up, upholding the spirit of interconnection and pursuing the goal of inclusiveness.
In 2017, Germany selected “shaping an interconnected world” as the theme for the Hamburg Summit, which also shares the same core with Hangzhou gathering.
Today’s world is going through unprecedented changes in a century, which also brought unheard of opportunities and obstacles. It is the development which holds the key to deal with these challenges and seize chances.
Unbalanced development usually constitutes the primary reason causing other problems for both a country and the world at large.
By stressing development for the people, by the people and its fruits shared by the people, and putting forward innovative, coordinated, green, open and shared development model, Xi has received echoes from the world with such people-centered development philosophies.
When taking a taxi in Buenos Aires, the driver gave a thumb up to us after learning that we are Chinese reporters. “China is good! President Xi is good!” said the passionate and friendly man.
Though has never been China, he bears a genuine passion towards the country because of one of his relatives, who lost job but finally had the whole family’s life changed after finding a position with ideal income in a Chinese company. “China is really good!” he kept saying.
There are a lot of residents in other countries who aspire to develop and share the growth dividends like the driver we met in Argentina.
Over the past ten years since the first leaders’ meeting took place in 2008, the all-in-the-same-boat spirit of partnership has been the most valuable asset of the G20 in international cooperation to handle the global financial crisis and its aftermath.
Despite of different national conditions, development stages and realistic challenges, the G20 members bear the same aspiration for economic growth, share common interests in dealing with the crisis, and harbour the same vision for common development.
The spirit of partnership is still needed to ensure the growth in the coming decade. As a vital platform for global economic cooperation, G20 should prioritize development in global macroeconomic policy coordination, discuss international cooperation from a perspective of development, take care the concerns of developing countries, and ensure the space of developing countries.
“No one should be left behind.” This should be a responsibility that G20, a cluster makes up 85 percent of world economic aggregate, should shoulder in this era.
