Back in 2005, US economist Fred Bergsten coined the term “Group of 2” or “G2”, proposing a stronger partnership between what are now the world’s two largest economies – the United States and China.
In the aftermath of the global financial crisis a few years later, economic cooperation between these two countries briefly seemed to attest to the success of efforts at integrating China into a liberal rules-based order.
To be sure, the ostensible G2 was not meant to replace the larger, formalised G20 group of major economies, so much as strengthen it. Underpinning the broader G20’s response to the global financial crisis, the US enacted an initial US$787 billion fiscal stimulus, while China provided its own US$586 billion stimulus. This helped avert a much larger global economic catastrophe.
