THE distance between Beijing, China, the venue of the recent Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (Apec) summit, and Brisbane, Australia, where the Group of 20 (G-20) Leaders’ Summit was held, is only 5,216 miles. However, the difference between those two meetings could not have been more dissimilar than the dinner menus of Australia’s Porterhouse beef steaks, served with Lockyer Valley cauliflower, and China’s Beijing duck and xiaolongbao (steamed buns).
Apec was Asia; G-20 was the West.
According to our simplistic and certainly biased interpretation, Apec was about Asian nations coming together for their own self-interests, while the G-20 was about the United States and Europe “leading” the rest of the world to where the West wants them to go.
Take climate change, for example. After working for many months behind the scenes, the US was able to get China to pledge to reduce carbon emissions. According to the US media, this was a huge victory for America and President Barack Obama.
What China agreed to was that it would set an undefined peak for its emissions by 2030. In return, Obama, while at the G-20, pledged $3 billion to the United Nations (UN) Green Climate Fund—money that was, no doubt, partially borrowed from China. We hope the Philippines will get some of that money.
The European members of the G-20 want a UN protocol, with legal force, against polluters. French President François Hollande even said climate change “could lead to catastrophe, if not war.” Obviously, Hollande was not talking about China, since the students at that country’s People’s Liberation Army National Defense University have a better military than any of those in Europe.
The G-20, led by the West, approved a package of 800 measures that are estimated to increase their economic output by 2.1 percent by 2018. For Asian Apec members, 2.1-percent growth is considered an economic failure.
But if they can achieve the figure, perhaps, at the 2016 G-20 meeting that will be held in China, they will be able to afford a fine bottle of wine. Chateau Hansen “Red Camel” Cabernet Sauvignon is produced in the Chinese autonomous region of Ningxia and costs $625. The grapes are fertilized by the droppings of Mongolian sheep.
In the Apec leaders’ ceremonial photo, Obama was off to one side. In the G-20 photo, it was Russian President Vladimir Putin who was on the sidelines. But of all the G-20 members, which country do you think has the lowest debt-to-gross domestic product ratio? As one headline read, “What a difference a week makes in international diplomacy.”
At both events, though, there was one leader who was always standing in the middle: Chinese President Xi Jinping. It is still the Asian century.
Image credits: Jimbo Albano