Russian Pundits: Nothing Can Be Resolved by G20! No One Leader Commands Enough Respect!

Karen Shakhnazarov, film director: This is one of the rarest cases. I mostly agree with Nikolay Vasilievich. I think that there's a strange situation in the world now. I don't think that this G20 summit can decide anything. I don't think that any issue can be solved there. I think that it's still connected with the fact that there's no leader.

Karen Shakhnazarov, film director: This is one of the rarest cases. I mostly agree with Nikolay Vasilievich. I think that there's a strange situation in the world now. I don't think that this G20 summit can decide anything. I don't think that any issue can be solved there. I think that it's still connected with the fact that there's no leader. It's becoming obvious that the world leader, which the U.S. was, practically doesn't exist anymore. Maybe this G20 summit will formalize China as the new leader. In principle, what can they agree on? I don't think that an agreement can be reached on any issue. Moreover, if it can be reached, it may happen in private meetings but not at the G20 summit. Therefore, I think that the world has entered the phase... By the way, approximately the same, as I understand, historians may correct me but I have my own opinion, happened before WWI, because the British Empire was a kind of leader. It was a kind of leader. But in fact, everyone realized that it wasn't the leader anymore and that they had to fight for that position. The Germans started to fight for that position. It led to WWI and, in fact, WWII. By the way, I think that the bunch of controversies is such that only nuclear weapons prevent the world from... I think that without nuclear weapons, another world war, WWIII, would have started long ago. In this sense, nuclear weapons have a positive role because I can't imagine the United States and China ultimately coming to a compromise. They could declare it and post it on Twitter. But it's impossible in reality. It's simply impossible because China has its own path, as they say. And it won't give it up. It's lethal for the U.S. because it makes its possible leadership impossible for sure. And it can't put up with that. Note that Europe isn't the United States and some monolith sample it used to be until 2013 when it turned out that the entire West concentrated all of its efforts, in fact, united all of Europe, even its smallest states. But this isn't true today. Europe is also divided today. That's why I think... In addition to that, we really see how strange the situation in modern politics is. Leaders don't have the power that they had 30-40 years ago. This isn't so anymore. Probably the only leaders, who can be compared in influence in their countries with them, are President Putin and Xi Jinping. They're two leaders who really can... Trump can neither decide nor promise anything now, in my opinion. It's impossible, especially since he's already engaged in the election campaign. Therefore, in this sense, I agree with Nikolay Vasilievich that there won't be any real decisions.

 

The only thing that can take place is what Alexey said. Maybe, at this summit, the leadership of China as a world leader will be symbolically formalized. We discussed it here many times. In my opinion, there won't be a multipolar world. The world is designed so that someone always becomes the leader. It's a natural part of historical development. In my opinion, China increasingly pretends for this position. Maybe this will take place at that meeting. Obviously, we should keep track of it. No real decisions, no real, in my opinion, breakthrough agreements shouldn't be expected.

- That's tragic. There's a saying that in ancient times, people got an education in order to improve their nature. Now they do it in order to make an impression. Do you agree? That'd be okay, but it was Confucius who said that. In the 5th century B.C. What were ancient times for him? China has at least 3,500 years of written history. And the country, which is as old as the Bolshoi Theater, tries to make a grimace and surprise it somehow. They don't understand that the political culture of that country they come across is so different that no straight-line methods of attack work at all. That's the peculiarity. When it seems that you surprised China and know everything, China looks at you and suddenly, you realize... Hello, Confucius! And he touched his beard and said, "Hello!" Never discuss China in straight-line terms. This is the best way to make a mistake. Actually, it's better to talk about China like Martians. Then it'll immediately become easier.

- First of all, Sergey Borisovich, I didn't say that China will triumphantly occupy that position. I didn't say that. I formulated it in a different way. I understand that for you as an old pro-Western liberal, this idea that the U.S. leaves that position makes you and our liberals tremble. I understand why. The entire system of support, everything will fail. I'll lead to colossal changes, and not only in Russia. But I'm not going to discuss that. I'd like to say that my idea is very simple. In 1989, a person went into a coma, slept for 30 years, and then woke up. He woke up on the eve of the G20 summit today. What did he see in the world? He suddenly saw that the USSR doesn't exist, Russia still remained but it lost large territories, allies, it lost the global influence that it had in 1989. But it preserved its important position among the top-three leaders. The United States preserves its global influence and power, of course, although Dmitry disagrees with you on this. In my opinion, in this sense, the United States and Trump haven't had any victories. Not only in Iran. The United States didn't solve the problems either with North Korea or Syria. The United States didn't solve the Venezuelan issue. That's why, over the last few years, for a global empire, it's been a chain of constant defeats. A person who wakes up from a coma will see that. And unexpectedly, remember 1989, he'll see China among those top-three countries. In 1989, it was impossible to imagine that. I visited China for the first time in 1987. I remember my simple, clear thought then. This country fell behind forever and will never catch up with anyone. When from the hotel, you see a crowd of people riding bicycles and wearing the same clothes, it felt like the USSR, but on a different planet. This is what you say about China now. The same happened then. Thirty years have passed, and China isn't only in the top-three countries, it's become the country which mostly determines global development. That's what I'm talking about. Therefore, I'm saying that this G20 summit can become a kind of triumph for China. But it isn't a triumph when someone declares it.

My second point is very important. When we talk about China, we always say that China has never strived... Yes, it's never strived, but people are people. People with the opportunity to carry out their power always do. And the Chinese are the same people as we. So, if they have power, economy, and military power, first and foremost, they'll inevitably carry it out.

And I'd like to make a third, important point. It's a technological issue. I always talk about AI, digitalization, and so on. Look, God can prepare unusual tests for humankind. I remember the 60s well, we all were crazy about science fiction. We really believed that people would be on Mars. Remember Solaris, Lem wrote that they flew to God-knows-where. It was a common belief. People believed that it was within arm's reach. Some 150 years have passed, and it turned out that we can't go anywhere beyond orbit and it seems that we'll never be able to. We won't be able. Take digitalization. I'll give you a simple example. Digitalization doesn't work in music at all. Analog control desks are considered the best. Therefore, we don't know how it'll develop, but it's quite possible that this belief in that endless technological progress can play a dirty trick. You see, 5G, AI, and other things... It's quite possible that humanity is getting closer to the end of his technical expansion. This, actually, isn't all that bad. Maybe this will make us finally think about our souls.

- Meanwhile, fragments of Putin's interview with the Financial Times are appearing. Putin said, "It's hard to expect a breakthrough, fateful decisions from the G20 summit. There's a hope that we'll manage to smooth over differences, create the ground for moving forward. The situation in the world, including in the Persian Gulf, hasn't improved but become more dramatic and explosive". He commented on the U.S.'s withdrawal from the INF Treaty, "I took very energetic attempts to convince our partners to not withdraw from the treaty, we debated and argued for a long time". Putin answered how much Trump differs from other U.S. leaders, "Everyone has his own advantages; shortcomings should be considered by the voter. I don't want to assess what Trump's doing, whether it's right or wrong". He was asked about his successor. He said that he'd been always thinking about a successor, since 2000, but it's always up to the voters to make the final choice. And he thinks that the modern liberal idea has become completely outdated. If the U.S. had adopted Russia's plan for anti-missile defense, the world would be different now. But unfortunately, it didn't happen".

- Look, this is what our program says about the liberal idea.

- We're constantly talking about the liberal idea.