Ex-China official accuses G20 of being ‘at a standstill’ as global emergencies converge in a severe systemic crisis

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Chinese President Xi Jinping (left) and US President Donald Trump (right) attend a working dinner after the G20 leaders summit in Buenos Aires in December 2018. Photo: Reuters

Published: 6:39pm, 12 Nov 2020Updated: 8:04pm, 12 Nov 2020

A former top Chinese finance official called on the Group of 20 (G20) to take a stronger role rather than staying “at a standstill” as the world faces a severe systemic crisis.

Zhu Guangyao, former finance vice-minister, said the world was currently facing a systemic crisis caused by the coronavirus pandemic and it was a global health crisis, a deep global economic recession and a serious crisis of global governance.

“G20 is basically at a standstill,” Zhu said at a forum organised by the Beijing-based think tank, the Centre for China and Globalisation (CCG), on Thursday.

“All of these [crises] overlap with each other to form a serious systemic crisis not experienced by human society since World War II,” he said.

Zhu Guangyao, then China's finance vice-minister, speaks in 2016 at a press conference at the G20 Media Centre in Hanghzou, capital city of east China's Zhejiang province. Photo: Simon Song

It is not common for senior Chinese officials – including those who have retired – to criticise the international community, but Zhu said it had failed to address the crisis, unlike the situation in 2008 when major countries worked together to overcome the global financial crisis through the G20 mechanism.