OP-ED: China-led G20 is world's opportunity to explore solutions to global challenges

Photo taken on Aug. 25, 2016 shows the Hangzhou Olympic and International Expo Center in the Binjiang District of Hangzhou, capital of east China's Zhejiang Province. Hangzhou is the host city for the upcoming G20 Summit.(Xinhua/Xing Guangli)

The financial crisis of 2008 was a warning to the world of unregulated development. It showed that the global structures had been overtaken by uncontrollable forces which threatened the markets of the world and, thereby, the stability of people’s lives across the world. It threatened economic development in developed and developing economies.

The institutions for global regulation and care developed during and just after the second world war were found unable to cope.

Into this void G20 was initiated to produce a new body which could across the developed and developing economies bring financial and monetary stability to underpin sustainable global economic development. Across the world we are still seeing tectonic shocks to the concept of creating a stable world which enables sustainable economic development.

In Europe, Asia, Africa and North America we can see questions being asked about globalisation and the fair spread of benefits across, and within, nations.

Old institutions have been slow to reform and adjust and the search for global answers and structures continues to challenge the world’s leaders.

This is not just about the validity and exit routes from QE, nor just about carbon emissions and green solutions. It is not just about new structures to enhance and develop the market development provided by WTO, but in the last 15 years held to modest gains.

It is about finding a global response to the opportunities for global growth to enable the peoples of the world to benefit from sustainable economic development, which will have the associated opportunity to challenge conflict and intolerance, and focus human endeavour on improving the lives of all nations.

G20 is the best forum for highlighting realities, considering options to address challenges and create communication challenges between world leaders across the developed and developing nations.

G20 is a developing body and it takes years for the participants to find their ways of effectively communicating and building the answers and the structures to enable the new world to emerge and succeed.

This G20 in China is a symbolic moment when globalisation is being challenged and all nations must commit to finding solutions and not building walls of isolation.

G20 is going to show, under China’s presidency, that there is a global way forward that is then interpreted in sectors and regions.

China’s Belt and Road Initiatives are just the sort of global growth stimulants that will bind the developing and developed nations in a project which will involve trillions of dollars, state of the art technology and transform the connectivity of Asia to Europe and Africa.

This is the time for G20 to start creating the agendas leading to the 21st century and stop the tendency towards the bad times of the 20th century.

G20’s time is coming and it should be ready.

(The author is Chairman of the 48 Group Club, an independent British business network committed to promoting links with China. This article is contributed exclusively to People’s Daily Online.)