China’s long journey to centre stage at G20 summit

China’s president was less than impressed with Japan’s treatment of the leaders of five emerging economies invited to a G8+5 meeting beside scenic Lake Toya in Hokkaido eight years ago.

Two sources who attended the G8 summit in the summer of 2008 said then president Hu Jintao, representing what at the time was the world’s third-biggest economy, noted differences in the way his Japanese hosts treated Group of Eight leaders and other invitees.

The G8 leaders’ lodges were in better locations, while the leaders of the five “special guests” – China, Brazil, India, Mexico and South Africa – had to stay “quite some way away”, one source said. The G8 countries comprised the seven leading industrialised countries – the United States, Britain, Germany, France, Japan, Canada and Italy – plus Russia.

That was around the time China began searching for a new global governance role to match its growing economic weight and influence on the world stage. But the G8 club of rich, mainly capitalist countries was not an option as Beijing viewed itself as a big, developing, socialist country.

So when Hu walked into the National Building Museum in Washington four months later for the first G20 leaders’ summit, called to address the impact of the global financial crisis, he did so with a sense of confidence. In a long speech he urged all members to work together to save the global economy and reminded them that China had, a few days earlier, announced an unprecedented 4 trillion yuan stimulus package.