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Awkward Handshakes, a Truce But at Least No G-20 Bust-Ups

Jamie Dettmer

   Thirteen years ago as the world was rocked by the impact of the
   financial crash, the G-20, the international forum for the heads of 19
   leading and developing countries and the European Union, had its most
   relevant moment.

   Led by Britain's then Prime Minister Gordon Brown, the G-20 moved to
   stabilize financial markets, helping to head off an even greater global
   slump.

   But since then the annual get-together has been notable for its
   lackluster results, lack of breakthroughs and sometimes ill-tempered
   disunity, say analysts.

   This year's gathering was no different -- although there were no fierce
   public disputes, just British Prime Minister Theresa May's frosty
   handshake with Russia's Vladimir Putin. The summit was easily
   overshadowed by President Donald Trump's warmer handshake Sunday with
   Kim Jong-un at the Demilitarized Zone, an encounter that turned media
   attention away from the G-20.

   The summit has become for many more symbolic of an increasingly
   fractious world where countries are struggling to patch up differences
   over globalization and are being roiled by unprecedented challenges to
   the post-1945 international rules-based trading system, say naysayers.

   "The G-20 was created as a forum for cooperation and the question may
   well be: Have we reached the point where it can no longer serve that
   purpose?" Thomas Bernes, an analyst with Canada's Center for
   International Governance Innovation, told AFP.
   EU national leaders present at the two-day summit in the Japanese port
   city of Osaka spent much of their energy on backroom wrangling over who
   should succeed Jean-Claude Juncker and Donald Tusk to lead the EU when
   their terms end in October as the president of the European Commission
   and European Council president respectively.