NEW HAVEN—The G20 meeting of world leaders in Hangzhou, China displayed more signs of discord than cooperation. In theory, the annual meeting of those leading 20 of the world’s largest economies is designed to explore political and economic collaboration. In practice, this meeting highlighted disagreement and reticence to tackle immediate crises.
Two broad themes stand out. First, competition among the world’s great powers is, if anything, increasing. Second, the economic underpinnings of the current order are under threat not from global leaders’ disagreements but because of a widespread popular sense that governments do not know how to manage globalization. This second trend is more disruptive because it is more unpredictable.
Surely, one might think, it is hard to get more unpredictable than Kim Jong-un, the North Korean dictator who recognized the G20 summit to which he was not invited by shooting three medium-range ballistic missiles into Japan’s air defense identification zone.
But the Korean risks seem manageable. More worrisome is the chance of a direct clash among the great powers, for example, over the disputed rocks and islands in the South and East China seas. This year’s G20 summit comes on the heels of a July ruling from an international tribunal that declared China’s expansive claims in the South China Sea illegal. For several years, Beijing has transformed a variety of rocks, one aptly named “Mischief Reef,” into large airstrips. The ruling was silently cheered by China’s neighbors in Southeast Asia, from Vietnam to Malaysia to the Philippines, but under pressure from China they have kept quiet. U.S. President Barack Obama admonished China to respect the tribunal’s ruling, but Beijing marked the G20 meeting by gathering naval forces near the Scarborough Shoal, a contested reef that China occupies.
