On September 5th, the 11th G20 Summit concluded with the delivery of G20 Leaders’ Communique, Hangzhou Summit. G20 Hangzhou Summit has seen 29 agreements be reached, making it the most fruitful one in the history of G20. Its milestone significance is mainly reflected in the following three aspects.

Firstly, G20 Hangzhou Summit has pointed a new way, charted a new course, and instilled new dynamism into the world economic growth. It was held at a critical time for world economic growth and the transformation of G20. At present, though generally the global economic recovery is progressing, it is faced with diverse crisis and challenges such as the weak driving force of growth, the insufficient demand, the volatile financial markets, sluggish trade and investment, etc. G20 is facing a further transformation from a crisis-response mechanism, which focuses on short-term policies, to a long-term global governance mechanism, which attaches equal importance to short-term and medium- to long-term policies. How can we cope with the challenges? How can we lead the world economy to the fast lane of recovery as soon as possible? All eyes are on G20 Hangzhou Summit.

G20 Hangzhou Summit has fulfilled the expectations through the endorsement of G20 Blueprint on Innovative Growth, which has made a series of concrete action plans with scientific and technological innovation at the core, determined to seek a sustainable and healthy way for global economic growth. For the first time G20 Blueprint on Innovative Growth has focused on the medium- and long- term driving force for global growth and formulated the priority areas of structural reform, a set of guiding principles, and a framework of indicators. In addition, the summit has drafted two documents with historic significance. One is the G20 Strategy for Global Trade Growth; the other is the G20 Guiding Principles for Global Investment Policymaking, which is the first multilateral framework for investment principles in the world and fills the gap in global investment governance.

Secondly, the G20 Summit communique will go down in history with its epoch-making significance. The communique has built world consensus, and combined global strength, through which, China, as a hosting country, conforms to the trend of the times, responds to the demand of people all around the world, contributes China’s wisdom, puts forward China’s scheme and shares China’s experience with the world. China has set the theme for Hangzhou Summit as “Towards an Innovative, Invigorated, Interconnected and Inclusive World Economy”, in the hope of reaching valuable and effective consensus on the four key areas of “breaking a new path for growth”, “more effective and efficient global economic and financial governance”, “robust international trade and investment” and “inclusive and interconnected development”. Upholding the spirit of win-win cooperation, sharing, and inclusiveness, G20 Hangzhou Summit keeps up with the times and reaches a meeting communique that is beneficial to the whole world, sending out a strong signal with concrete action that “we will work to ensure that growth and development benefit all countries and peoples and that livelihood of all people, especially those in developing countries, will get better day by day.”

Thirdly, the significance of Hangzhou Consensus lies in that it enables the G20 state members to have consensus in idea, plans in action, and guarantees in mechanism. Hangzhou Consensus “takes a long view and comprehensively implements policies for a wider opening-up and an inclusive development”. It is also significant in that it shows China has come to the center stage of global governance from the margin and the world is greeting a new era of reconstructing international economic order. The five concepts of innovative, coordinated, green, open and shared development proposed in China’s 13th Five-Year Plan have attracted much attention. The Belt and Road Initiative is reflected in the Global Infrastructure Connectivity Alliance Initiative. It is China’s great contribution to global development in the new era and a great pioneering work of combining China’s development with the global development, giving full play to China’s confidence as a great power in the world.

Hangzhou Consensus has been reached, with tasks and direction being set, and the G20 member states should take action. We have reasons to believe that the G20 will, taking Hangzhou as a fresh starting point and Hamburg as the next destination, actively implement and push forward the outcomes of Hangzhou Summit so as to lead the world to build a bright future for the economic recovery and the sustainable development of the world.

Note: The author of this article is Shi Jianxun, a special commentator in People’s Daily, head of Research Institute of Finance and Economics in Tongji University, and a researcher in Shanghai Research Center for the Theories of Socialism with Chinese characteristics. The article originally appeared in People’s Daily on the following website: https://paper.people.com.cn/rmrbhwb/html/2016-09/08/content_1710769.htm