China to display its global clout as G-20 Summit host this weekend
BEIJING — Factories have been shuttered, cooking with gas stoves banned, the first day of school delayed and people sent on vacation.
It's all in preparation for this weekend, when China’s eastern city of Hangzhou hosts the Group of 20 Summit, an event that China's communist government sees as evidence of its growing global influence.
Before the summit, the coastal tech hub, already one of China's most beautiful cites, has undergone a massive face lift. It has spent more than $1 billion on a new convention center and installed extra lights around its famous West Lake to make sure it twinkles just the right amount for the world leaders gathering there.
In the past few days, the city has been largely empty. The first day of school, usually Sept. 1, was delayed a week, and residents were given vouchers to go on a holiday.
To make sure the air stays clean and the skies blue, people living near the conference center have been told not to turn on their gas stoves. Instead, police will deliver them ready-made meals cooked elsewhere.
Migrant workers and those from China’s restive Xinjiang region were ordered to leave. Christian churches, the subject of a government crackdown, have been ordered to suspend services.
The meticulous preparations underscore the government's eagerness to showcase its development and prove that the world's second-largest economy deserves a leading role in global affairs. Even though it is a permanent member of the United Nations Security Council and a key player in international finance, China often feels it is not given the respect it deserves, according to China experts.
“The summit will force the world to focus on and listen to China. It will allow President Xi Jinping to speak with a louder voice,” said Wang Wen, dean of the Chongyang Institute for Financial Studies at Beijing’s Renmin University.
China pushed an ambitious economic development agenda during its year-long presidency of the G-20 to raise the importance of the summit and cement the communist country’s role as a leader of the developing world, Wang said.
“The West has ... underestimated China. This year has shown China can set the agenda,” Wang said.
Xi may want to confine the summit discussions to economic issues such as boosting global growth, encouraging innovation and removing barriers to world trade. The approximately two dozen other leaders probably will raise other issues that may put China on the defensive, such as its weak human rights record, aggressive territorial claims in the South China Sea and overproduction of steel that is hurting foreign producers.
Saturday, President Obama will meet one-on-one with Xi to discuss some of these contentious issues, the White House said.
“The president will emphasize all countries need to play by the same rules, regardless of size or power, because that’s the way everyone can compete and be treated equally. He’ll also affirm that we believe countries are better able to reach their full potential when they protect the universal rights of all of their citizens,” Daniel Kritenbrink, National Security Council director for Asian affairs, said this week.
Other world leaders in attendance include German Chancellor Angela Merkel, Russian President Vladimir Putin, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and the presidents of the European Commission and European Council.
U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki Moon will be there along with heads of international financial organizations and representatives from Africa and Southeast Asia.
“This is the most important gathering of leaders in China in modern history,” said Tristram Sainsbury, project director at the G-20 Studies Centre at Australia’s Lowy Institute for International Policy.
China is not a member of the more elite Group of Seven and has “felt like an add-on to a Western-dominated process," he said.
“Instead, the G-20 — a group that included China from the start — is an acknowledgment that global decisions need to be made by both emerging and advanced economies,” he said.