For observers of both global summitry and China's rising influence in the world, the Chinese Presidency of the Group of 20 (G20) and the centrepiece Hangzhou Summit of September 2016 have garnered considerable attention. This is understandable as two different but parallel phenomena intersect. On the one hand, in the immediate aftermath of the global economic and financial crisis, attention shifted from the exclusive and seemingly ineffective G7 as the world's steering committee to the more inclusive G20. At the same time, China's participation as a founding member was a given, reflecting not only its concomitant rise in importance within the global economy but also the fact that it had been a key participant in the G20 finance ministers' meetings that began in 1999 after the East Asian economic crisis and were upgraded to the leaders' level in 2008.
However, since both 1999 and 2008, China's leadership within the G20 has been the subject of debate both within and outside China. Initially wary of an informal forum like the G20, China tended to keep it at arm's length, resisted any attempt at institutionalization and privileged the more legitimate position of the United Nations (UN). However, more recently this stance began to change, especially since China's presidency of the G20 was announced at the 2014 Brisbane Summit. In this context, and especially in this momentous year, Kirton's contribution to our understanding of how China's role in the G20 has evolved over a relatively short period of time is indeed welcome.
The book provides an empirically rich coverage of these incremental developments in five chronological chapters that detail the development of “G” summitry as well as China's engagement from the East Asian economic crisis through to the 2016 Hangzhou Summit. In addition, an analytical chapter evaluates China's participation in the G20 and explores its motivations. It will come as no surprise to students of China's role in the world to learn that the extant literature has highlighted multiple, overlapping and often contradictory identities that shape China's participation in the G20. China is motivated by the status that the G20 accords, its leadership of emerging countries generally as well as the BRICS countries and Asia specifically, the role of a bridge builder between different constituencies, or a reformer whose efforts range from reluctant to proactive, to name but a few of the labels Kirton employs in his literature review.
Kirton's own analysis is generated by the application of his own “systemic hub model of G20 governance” adapted for the study of a single G20 member country. This model develops six criteria to measure summit performance that include the commitments made by summiteers and the extent to which they comply with them. What enables this approach and distinguishes this as a research monograph is that Kirton (and the G20 Research Group he heads) has been accredited to attend every G20 summit to take place so far. This enviable access complements and enriches the English and Chinese language secondary sources upon which his analysis is built. The ongoing reports on G20 countries' commitments and compliance, conducted for some years by the G20 Research Group based at the University of Toronto, provide another important source.
Within the literature on the G20 and global summitry more broadly, a plethora of monographs, articles and working papers focus on the evolution of the G20, its effectiveness and evolving agenda. However, there is a perplexing paucity of country-specific research that seeks to understand how member countries approach this forum of global governance. At the same time, the China studies literature has tended to neglect China's role in global governance, or has prioritized the more longstanding institutions such as the UN, the International Monetary Fund and World Bank. Although not an area studies specialist per se, Kirton's focus on China is long overdue in both literatures.
Although I would question the methodology associated with the compliance reports and welcome a broader discussion of the concept of leadership, this book represents an important point of reference and will provide inspiration for further theoretical and empirical work. It will appeal to higher-level students as recommended reading in courses ranging from China's international relations to global governance more broadly defined. In addition, researchers and policymakers of all nationalities who want to trace China's growing leadership role in global summitry should take note.
