The Group of 20 meeting held Sept. 4 and 5 in Hangzhou, China, was hailed as a great success by the Chinese media. Certainly, from the Chinese government's perspective, the summit went comparatively smoothly.

From Beijing's viewpoint, China succeeded in setting the agenda for this G-20 meet. That is, China successfully kept the focus on economic and financial questions and away from political issues. With this year's Group of Seven summit raising the South China Sea issue and the Permanent Court of Arbitration ruling against Beijing, China was wary that the dispute would be raised by the G-20.

However, the G-20 gathering has its origins in 1999 as a meeting of finance ministers and central bank governors from 20 major economies, before being upgraded to a summit of leaders of the world's 20 major economies following the global financial crisis of 2008. The meeting is formally referred to as the G-20 Leaders' Summit on Financial Markets and the World Economy. In this respect, the fact that host China set an agenda focusing on the road to economic development, the world economy and financial stability were not enough to arouse strong suspicion among member countries. Also, in terms of China's partitioning of its diplomacy, whereas the BRICS (Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa) summit has both political and economic elements to its agenda, the G-20 was simply an opportunity to talk about the economy.