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Looking at the long game, G20 FMM signals change of direction
It would be naive to expect a single meeting or summit to resolve the geopolitical tensions in the world today, but last weekend's G20 meeting has teased some cause for optimism over the long term.
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Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi (left) and United States Secretary of State Antony Blinken appear at a joint press conference on July 9, 2022 during the Group of Twenty Foreign Ministers’ Meeting (G20 FMM) in Nusa Dua, Bali. (AFP/Stefani Reynolds)
In the editorial "G20 to the rescue? published in the lead-up to the Group of Twenty Foreign Ministers’ Meeting (G20 FMM), held on July 8-9 in Nusa Dua, Bali, The Jakarta Post questioned whether the forum could find a peaceful solution to the war in Ukraine.
The truth of the matter is that no single international forum could end the war, nor can a single summit ease the geopolitical tensions that have built up over the decades.
Even in the days before war broke out in Ukraine, many world leaders hosted or participated in dialogue, only to end in nothing.
French President Emmanuel Macron and German Chancellor Olaf Scholz both sat across that long table at the Kremlin with Vladimir Putin, trying to persuade the Russian President not to launch an offensive in Ukraine. Several months prior, United States President Joe Biden arranged a bilateral meeting with Putin in Switzerland, but nothing came of it, either.
So, if the question going into the G20 FMM was whether the event would be able to deliver an outcome that resulted in de-escalating the situation in Ukraine, the answer is, of course, no.
The bar is just too high for anyone to clear.
And if we had observed how things unfolded inside the meeting venue, it looked like an unmitigated disaster.
