(G20 summit)Spotlight: Political will indispensible for archiving concrete results in G20 summit

China has set clear and essential goals for the upcoming G20 summit and concrete results are expected to be achieved as long as G20 leaders show strong political will, experts from the European Institute for Asian Studies (EIAS) said.

Leaders of the world's 20 largest economies are scheduled to meet in China's southeastern city of Hangzhou on Sept. 4 and 5. The gathering has caught global attention amid lackluster global economic performance and rising geopolitical tensions this year.

The Brussels-based think tank is drafting an assessment report on the Chinese presidency of G20, which is to be published late October.

"In order to make an analysis of the result, first we have to think about the expectations," Hannes Dekeyser, program coordinator of EIAS said.

Eight years after the global financial crisis, the recovery remains slow and fragile. Facing the backdrop of sluggish demand, overcapacity, tendency towards protectionism, lack of confidence, market volatility and multiple political uncertainties, the people of the world have high expectations for the summit.

"First of all, the G20 must try to foster growth again," he said, "secondly, the social issues, such as social stability, climate change, that could also be addressed."

Acknowledging this, Dekeyser said the agenda and four priorities raised by China during its presidency of G20 were very timely.

"The G20 will try to address these issues by promoting innovation, by making sure that protectionism is avoided, by ensuring that competitive currency devaluations are also avoided. We will see whether the outcomes are comparable with our expectations. And we hope to be able to say that they meet or even exceeded our expectations," the expert said.

Besides, the international system, which is facing a problem of over-representation of the developed world, also needs to be adjusted in a way, Grzegorz Stec, research fellow at EIAS, added.

"That clearly would be something we would like to see, as it is a prerequisite for securing a stable international environment," he said.

In his view, constructive discussion and cooperation of all parties involved in the spirit of mutual respect is crucial to achieve the goal.

The EIAS expert expected that China, as a rising power and the biggest developing country in the world, would help to handle this lack of communication as a voice of mediation between the major industrialized economies and emerging markets during its G20 presidency.

"China is a country that highly values stability and can pragmatically unite many different perspectives. I think that these qualities -- rooted in the Chinese culture -- make China a good choice to lead the G20 in turbulent 2016," he said.

However, noting that actions and goals agreed among the G20 leaders were non-binding, Dekeyser warned that domestic and international political uncertainties facing the G20 countries may add to lingering doubts over its effectiveness.

"One of the challenges we witnessed quite recently is the fact that several member states of the G20 would like to politicize the meeting, using it for their own political agenda, which China prefers not to do," he said, citing the cases of the current tension in the South China Sea and the deployment of the anti-ballistic system in South Korea.

Therefore, the expert said a successful G20 summit would depend on the members states' behavior -- "whether they are willing enough to discuss the issues that have priority."

"Second, domestically, many member states have political developments that are quite challenging," Dekeyser said, giving by way of example the impacts of Brexit, political turmoil in Brazil, the upcoming U.S. presidential election and next year's elections in Germany and France.

"It might be quite hard for these member states to make long-term commitments," he said.

Therefore, the EIAS experts suggested China make other leaders enthusiastic about its suggestions and ideas, taking domestic issues of the other countries into account.

In this regard, Dekeyser believes the past few innovative concepts that China came up with, such as the establishment of the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB) and the Belt and Road Initiative, have quotable values.

"The AIIB was a tremendous success, many European countries joined the AIIB directly, and European diplomats are enthusiastic about it," according to the EIAS expert, "this Chinese narrative is grabbing the momentum."

Echoing Dekeyser, Stec said China was promoting a new vision and a new narrative for global economic governance at a time when economic and political structures of the international system were being contested.

"The most important of course being the Belt and Road Initiative that could be described as an innovative, invigorated, interconnected and inclusive world economy. You can see a link between the G20 agenda and the initiative. And in this regard, China's policy aligns with a global policy," he said.

Noting that China was going to present an infrastructure framework at the G20, Dekeyser said it was "a very tangible suggestion" and the world could benefit from this. "I hope it will achieve the respective result," he added. Endit