New starting point for G20 to act as force to move history forward in right direction

There were countless challenges facing leaders of the Group of 20 economies attending their 19th summit meeting in Rio de Janeiro on Monday and Tuesday.

The ongoing conflicts in Ukraine and the Middle East, potentially explosive geopolitical hotspots in certain regions, the lackluster post-COVID-19 global recovery, protectionist and isolationist tendencies in international trade and general state-to-state relations, climate change's devastating impacts on the world's poorest communities, and the de facto paralysis of some key institutions of global governance. The list could go on and on. But everything has to do with justice and sustainability, the two subjects the Rio summit aspired to address under the essential priority of "Building a Just World and a Sustainable Planet".

The most significant accomplishment of the meeting, in terms of its potential immediate practical effects, was the inauguration of the Global Alliance against Hunger and Poverty. Despite some analysts' anticipation of a failure to produce a joint final document, the attending heads of state and government did manage to produce one. That in itself underscores a collective recognition of the urgent need to answer the increasingly divided world's calls for healing.

All participating leaders brought with them their own country's perspective on the meetings' central topics, with those from the West displaying elements of divisiveness, and those from Global South nations focusing more on inclusiveness.

The voice from Beijing unequivocally upheld the shared benefits that would accrue from justice and inclusiveness. Chinese President Xi Jinping's speeches delivered at the two sessions of the meeting were titled respectively "Building a Just World of Common Development", and "Working Together for a Fair and Equitable Global Governance System". Which not only aligned seamlessly with the Rio summit's core concerns, but again elaborated the Chinese leadership's vision of just global development and governance from the perspective of its proposed community with a shared future for humankind.

In his speech on "fighting hunger and poverty", President Xi urged countries to promote more inclusive, universally-benefiting and resilient global development. Drawing on China's own experiences in poverty alleviation over the past decades, as both a beneficiary of economic globalization and victim of rising protectionism, the Chinese leader called for more bridges for cooperation rather than "small yards with high fences". For building a just world of common development, he called for an open, inclusive, and nondiscriminatory environment for international economic cooperation so as to narrow the North-South development gap. Responding to the growing geopolitical divide in the international community and bloc confrontation, he appealed for countries to adhere to true multilateralism, preserve the international system centered on the United Nations, the international law-based global order, and basic international conventions based on the UN Charter and principles.

The eight actions the Chinese leader announced in the speech for supporting global development represent significant moves to honor the country's commitment to global public welfare as a member of the Global South. Designed with an eye on both China's own development needs and those of the other members of the Global South, they will not end up as empty talk, as they are all eminently executable being based on the key proven-effective international development programs Beijing has been promoting all these years — the Belt and Road Initiative, Global Development Initiative, aid projects in Africa, and unilateral openness to the least-developed nations. The actions accord harmoniously with the global community's aspirations for a cooperative, stable, open, innovative and eco-friendly world economy that leaves no one behind, as Xi underscored.

But it will take more than the mutual goodwill on display at the summit for countries to see each other's development as opportunities, not challenges. In reality, to avoid a zero-sum game making a Cold War 2.0 a self-fulfilling prophecy requires countries to offer helping hands to each other irrespective of their differences. That is the call of the times that leaders worldwide need to answer.