At the end of this week, the G20 summit will be held in Buenos Aires. As reported, Chinese President Xi Jinping might meet U.S. President Donald Trump during the summit.

Over the past few months, the trade conflict between the U.S. and China has captured the headlines of the international media. The recent APEC meetings also witnessed a battle of ideas over international trade between the two countries. These interactions may foreshadow the G20 summit in Buenos Aires.

Zhao Hai, the research fellow with the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, expresses a generally pessimistic view over the summit — that China is prepared for a worst-case scenario that there is no further negotiation or concession over the trade problem. Though China shows its willingness to negotiate on the trade problems through multiple platforms, the hardliners in Trump administration that are not willing to talk seem to make up the majority.

The U.S. government is seriously divided over attitudes toward China. Derek Scissors, a research scholar with the American Enterprise Institute, suggests that there could also be a high possibility for Donald Trump to try to mitigate the tension as the mid-term elections have ended and the United States won't have a major vote until 2020. There is a propensity of “half-time break” for the White House so that they could save more energy and strategies for the 2020 campaign when U.S.-China relations will definitely become a major concern at the time.

Martin Redrado, a senior economic advisor with the World Bank and the former president of Argentina's central bank, shared a perspective out of the U.S.-China bilateral framework and focused more on the significance of international cooperation for the whole world. The leaders should address economic cooperation to fight against cyclical economic downturns in the foreseeable future, he said. Since 2008, the G20 platform has long been an effective platform, and Martin wishes that the summit continues to be productive in certain areas such as infrastructure where countries find common interests.

However, Hung Tran is not sure about the prospects of international cooperation. As the executive managing director of the Institute of International Finance, he suggests that there is shrinking ground for cooperation, and the divergence is wider compared to what the world economy was like a decade ago. The world economy was not facing the same financial crisis then, but there is now a less urgent need for cooperation against recession.   

On the other hand, disagreements between the countries over agendas such as trade and climate change are expanding; Hung worries that these issues may overshadow the potential room for cooperation at the G20. Zhao Hai also mentions the geopolitical disputes between Turkey and Saudi Arabia, and between Russia and Ukraine just a few days ago, so that there must be turbulent multilateral interaction in the summit.

After all, the optimistic hope in the G20 is that the leaders can start to talk instead of confronting each other. According to Zhao Hai, what is best for China over the G20 summit is that it can reach a preliminary agreement with the United States so that the tariffs war can be halted, and both countries can stop hurting each other and send a signal to start the procedural talks between the two.

The Heat with Anand Naidoo is a 30-minute political talk show on CGTN. It airs weekdays at 7:00 a.m. BJT and 7:00 p.m. Eastern in the United States