Junk the G-20 Summit! Stop Global Imperialism!

The International League of Peoples’ Struggle – Asia Pacific (ILPS-AP) expects a regurgitation of neoliberal policies by the Group of 20 (G20) as they meet at Bali, Indonesia on 15-16 November 2022.

The response of the G20 to the current economic crisis the world is facing will be an echoing of what the Group of 7 has promoted: deepen Neoliberal policies across the global South to protect and aggrandize the interest of the transnational corporations (TNCs).

The G20 is composed of Argentina, Australia, Brazil, Canada, China, France, Germany, India, Indonesia, Italy, Japan, Republic of Korea, Mexico, Russia, Saudi Arabia, South Africa, Turkey, the United Kingdom, the United States, and the European Union, and within the G20 are the G7 countries of Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, the United Kingdom and the United States.

The various meetings leading to the annual meeting in Bali have proselytize the Neoliberal project as a the solution to the economic crisis the world is facing. The Neoliberal policies of of deregulation, liberalization, privatization and de-nationalization, have accelerated the decline of the lives of the working people, while profits for the TNCs have ballooned to unprecedented levels. More of the people of world are now in dire poverty while a few have become billionaires off the back of the working
people.

When the working people of the world demand jobs, higher wages and labour rights to get us out of the job crisis, the G20 urges countries to conduct more vocational and skill training, placing the blame on the workers, as they are not agile to adapt to the changing labour market. The G20 champion the interest of Big Tech as they forward more digitalization of the economy, creating a bigger precariat of workers in the platform economy without employee-employer contracts, while the grip of Big Tech on a widening array of sectors of the society is tightened and their control of the lives of the whole population is further entrenched.

For the rural people, the G20 maintains liberalized trade in agriculture, ensuring the hegemony of agro-TNCs over our food. The monopoly of seeds and other farm inputs by the agro TNCs are perpetuated by the proposals of the G20 for non-distorting trade policies, excluding subsidies for small and artisanal fisherfolk, as was proposed by the World Trade Organization in its 12th Ministerial Conference last July 2022. Again they place the blame on the small fisherfolk for overfishing, and shield the big TNCs role in overfishing the waters. The big TNCS in fishing dominates global fish production, amounting to 75% of total production.

The COVID19 pandemic has indebted many countries of the South, with 60% of low-income countries are either high risk or already in debt distress. The G20 promotes the policies of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the World Bank Group (WBG) of blended financing for debt of developing economies.

The push of the G20 for Blended Finance in Developing Countries, including Least Developed Countries and Small Island Developing States will mean greater debt for the poor countries, and allow the greater role of the private and commercial sector in loans and debt. By adopting blended finance, the private sector is given a bigger role in debt financing. With the experience of many economies on loan conditionalities that entrenched Neoliberal policies, this time with blended financing, the interest of private finance is assured in debt servicing. The G20’s debt service suspension initiative (DSSI) and the G20’s Common Framework for Debt Treatments and that such initiatives are not debt cancellation but mere intermission of payments from debtor countries.

The working people see through the veil of inclusivity and multilateralism supposed promoted by the G20. We see that it is the G7, led by the US who runs the show in G20, and the G20 serves as a deodorizer for the stench of the G7, while having other countries echo the Neoliberal project of the G7.

Neoliberalism and its many policies implemented in the Southern countries have placed the working people in poverty and destitution and created the many crisis in the past. To end the cycle of crisis, we must end expel Neoliberalism in our countries, together with the TNCs that exploit and plunder our people and resources. We must do away with the old policies and create a new world order where our resources are democratically controlled and manage by the working people themselves. When it is the working people who are in control, that is the time we can be free of the crisis of capitalism.