The World

By Geoff Dyer, FT China bureau chief

Have we just watched the launch of the G2? As Barack Obama has said several times this week, there are few big global problems that can be solved without the agreement of the US and China. And talking in terms of a G2 captures some of the shifting balance of global power where a wounded US is seeking to find common cause with a rising China.

Yet there is only one main problem with the idea. No one actually wants a G2.

Let’s start with the people who really, really do not want a G2. Europe hates the idea because it would cement its declining relevance on the world stage. India, Brazil & Co see it as a challenge to their own global superpower aspirations.

Then there are the Chinese. The idea is flattering of course, especially to a people with such an in-built sense of being at the centre of the world.

But a real G2, where the US-China relationship acts as a clearing house for thorny international issues, would come with all sorts of leadership obligations which China is quite happy to let others (the US) fulfil.

And what of the US? Well, if the Obama visit has shown anything, it is that China does not give much away in these sorts of bilateral summits. More sanctions for Iran, more help in Afghanistan, a stronger currency? Thanks, but no thanks.

As Elizabeth Economy and Adam Segal argued in this perceptive piece earlier in the year, the US can exert much more pressure on China through multilateral approaches (i.e. ganging up with other countries) than through one-on-one meetings.

That leaves the only supporters of the G2 as us folks in the news media, for whom such a simple label for a complex reality is too irresistible.