(CNN)World leaders touch down in the Chinese city of Hangzhou this week for the G20 summit and Beijing is determined it will proceed without a hitch.
Factories are shuttered, skies are clear and security is tight. Local residents have been given seven days extra vacation time and discounted tours to destinations outside the city to ensure Hangzhou is free of crowds and traffic.
Meanwhile, thousands of migrant workers have left the city due to the halt in their work lives and the growing inconvenience caused by G20 preparation measures.
What will be discussed at the summit? How has China prepared? And why is it in Hangzhou anyway?
Here"s five things you need to know.
China takes the lead
The Hangzhou meeting will be the first G20 China has hosted, and only the second held in Asia since 2008.
The G20"s first high-profile meeting was in Washington D.C. in 2008, after the fall of Lehman Brothers bank and the start of the global financial crisis.
An alternative to the more exclusive G7, it was designed as a way to create conversation at the top levels of international government and try to ensure disasters, like the financial crisis, were avoided in the future.
The Hangzhou summit has been called another "milestone" for a rising China, keen to show its growing dominance on the world stage.
It"s an opportunity for President Xi Jinping to burnish his diplomatic credentials.
He"ll meet Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi, German Chancellor Angela Merkel and it will likely be his last bilateral meeting with US President Barack Obama.
The elephant in the room?
It"s been less than three months since China lost to the Philippines in an international court case over its contested territorial claims in the South China Sea.
But at the G20 in Hangzhou, the host country will be working hard to keep it off the agenda.
Vice-Foreign Minister Li Baodong said it will be focusing on economic issues, according to government mouthpiece China Daily, rather than security.
In a separate editorial, the Global Times wrote the Hangzhou summit "shouldn"t be distracted by sea spat."
Read more: http://www.cnn.com/2016/08/30/asia/china-hangzhou-g20-2016/index.html
No comments:
Post a Comment