Hosting G20 would be opportunity for China and the world

The joint statement by Chinese President Xi Jinpingand his French counterpart Fran ois Hollande on March 26 outlined both countries' future comprehensive strategic partnership as a period of close and long-term development. In the statement, France showed its expectation that China should host its first G20 summit as soon as possible.

China is moving closer to becoming the host state of the G20 with France's support. China is not new to holding international events, but the G20, a forum incorporating major world economic powers and characterizing global top-level design and political enforcement, is something new. After a communiqué issued in 2011 pointing out the host state of the G20 summit will be rotated from 2015, China has become the most likely country to earn this opportunity in 2016 after Turkey was chosen to host the 2015 summit.

The operating mechanism of the G20 summit empowers the host state to set the agenda of the summit and also take the responsibilities of the ensuing conferences within the year such as the meetings of finance ministers and central bank governors, dozens of second-track meetings and hundreds of official and unofficial events. What's more, the host state will receive visits from many other nations and organizations, and release reports of great international significance.

In most cases, the scale of these events is not big, but they have substantial influence. Dealing with these meetings and reports in one year is a demanding task for the host state, whose abilities to participate in international affairs and assume responsibilities as a major power are tested. This would require China, if successfully elected as the host state in 2016, to make every effort to learn experiences and lessons from other countries in terms of how to arrange the meetings, set the agendas and organize publicity channels. China would need to do this preparation systematically and comprehensively.

Finding ways to enhance China's capability to be more engaged in global governance should be the key reason to act as host of the G20 summit. China must realize that the G20 summit is a platform where multilateral mechanisms prevail. Country-to-country and country-to-organization interactions require China to be an effective organizer to integrate 33 countries and organizations into one framework.

China should also take the initiative in second-track meetings, where most achievements are made during the summit. China should keep in mind that second-track meetings and off-line activities are the real venues where events take place. China must make use of these interactions to set the agenda. In order to gain the upper hand in these important events, China should establish think tanks and pools of strategies to make sure it is fully prepared.

If China is elected as the host state of the 2016 G20 summit, it must make good use of the privilege of setting the agenda to make more contributions to the establishment of a new fairer international political and economic order.

First, China should put reform of the international financial system on the agenda. The detachment of the US dollar-based world monetary system from the development of the real economy was the root cause of the financial crisis. Now the ideology of reforming international finance is still limited within simply suggesting more supervision and management measures, so China must lead the global efforts of reform to build a new system, which can avoid the latent defect of using a sovereign reserve currency as a predominant world currency, so that the stability and anti-risk ability of the global financial system can be improved.

Second, as the representative of the emerging economies, China has become the locomotive of global economic growth because of its stable development of the real economy under the circumstances of the global financial crisis. China can propose the philosophy of letting finance serve the real economy as the core value of the G20.

Third, the global value chain has made it impossible for one single nation or small trade union to develop without getting involved in global trade. But meanwhile, trade protectionism such as trade barriers is impeding the world from enjoying the fruits of the development of the global market economy. China could propose the concept of common development and make sure every member of the world economy can play its competitive advantage and optimize the distribution of world resources.

The author, Chen Yulu, is President of Renmin University of China and a member of the Monetary Policy Committee of the People's Bank of China.