True to its word

China's compliance with its commitments rises, as that of the G7 countries decline

The G20 leaders declared that the unprecedented novel coronavirus pandemic is "a powerful reminder of our interconnectedness and vulnerabilities "in their videoconference on March 26. They admirably put health first, as US President Donald Trump and Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro switched their focus from economic growth. This happened 10 days after the G7 leaders called for the G20 "to support and amplify these efforts", having produced a statement with 31 commitments on March 16.

A recent report by the G7 Research Group looked at how well the G7 members had complied with the commitments their leaders had made at their summit in Biarritz, France, in August 2019. The report shows that G7 members' early compliance with the 21 priority commitments from the 71 the G7 leaders made at the Biarritz summit has been unusually low. The authors of the report monitored the publicly available material to determine what actions were taken, if any, between the day after the summit ended until Dec 20, 2019. (A report covering the full period between the 2019 summit and the 2020 US-hosted summit will be released in June).

At only 62 percent, the compliance with the Biarritz commitments is a sharp drop from the G7's overall 44-year compliance average of 75 percent.

By subject, compliance was highest on universal health coverage at 100 percent, followed by the Sustainable Development Goals and gender equality, both at 94 percent. It was lowest on primary healthcare at 13 percent, tax policy at 25 percent and digital infrastructure at 31 percent.

By member, compliance was led by Germany at 74 percent and the United Kingdom at 71 percent. Italy was last at 36 percent, after Canada and the United States each at 52 percent.

Japan had a 69 percent compliance rate. Japan fully complied with 11 of the 21 priority commitments assessed. Its highest compliance came on the digital economy and development, and its lowest on trade and on crime and corruption. On the three health commitments, it averaged only 25 percent.

In sharp contrast, in the G20, China's compliance is on the rise. Its average compliance with the 2018 G20 Buenos Aires Summit's priority commitments was 88 percent. It had very high compliance on trade and financial regulation, where the compliance of the G7 members was low.

On health, today's critical concern due to the novel coronavirus pandemic, China has fully complied with the Buenos Aires commitment on health, addressing universal health coverage. In contrast, the G7 has had inconsistent initial compliance with its 2019 Biarritz health commitments, scoring 100 percent on universal health coverage but only 13 percent on primary healthcare and 38 percent on mental health.

One cause of the G7's low compliance may be US President Trump's dislike of international cooperation. However, he performed adequately at the Biarritz Summit and at the two previous summits, for which G7 compliance was rather strong. Another cause could be the rising trade tensions and protectionism among G7 members, led by the United Kingdom's departure from the European Union.

Compliance could surge in the subsequent six months before the G7 summit scheduled for June 10-12, 2020. This possibility is reinforced by the intense G7 governance in early 2020, responding to the unprecedented coronavirus crisis and the ensuing economic and financial shocks. G7 finance ministers and central bank governors made four commitments at their meeting on March 3, and among the G7 leaders' March 16 commitments, one was that their health and finance ministers would meet by videoconference weekly. Such ministerial meetings are the best predictor of higher compliance with G7 commitments. Thus this unprecedented barrage of health and finance ministerial meetings should spur the corresponding commitments from the Biarritz Summit to much higher compliance than might be expected had the novel coronavirus crisis not arisen.

Moreover, G7 leaders will meet by videoconference again on two occasions before their scheduled summit in June.

Today China is the leader in conquering the virus, and probably the economic crisis as its factories begin to reopen. Notably, in their statement on March 26, the G20 leaders made 47 commitments, led by 20 commitments on health, followed by nine commitments on the global economy. Yet there were several shortcomings in the many steps they took. China's leadership was critical in making that G20 summit a success. President Xi Jinping who participated as the leader of the G20 country that had conquered the health threat said "life and work are quickly returning to normal" in China. China's G20 leadership will be needed even more as 2020 unfolds, to benefit the US and the other G7 countries, which are now the main battlefields against the virus of the pandemic.

John Kirton is the director and Meagan Byrd is the chair of the summit studies at the G7 Research Group from University of Toronto. The authors contributed this article to China Watch, a think tank powered by China Daily. The views do not necessarily reflect those of China Daily.