That’s how the leaders of a ten-country Southeast Asian Association (ASEAN) defined their development objectives during last week’s summit in Phnom Penh, Cambodia.

And then, India’s Prime Minister Narendra Modi inaugurated last Tuesday his country’s 2023 G20 presidency with an appeal for universal unity: "One Earth, One Family, One Future." Delhi pledged to host 200 meetings “in one of the highest-profile international gatherings” to get the world out of the present “crisis and chaos.”

Realizing the difficulty of that task, Modi sounded like he was reaching out for divine help when he told his G20 colleagues that when they meet next year “in the holy land of Buddha and Gandhi” they will send a “message of peace to the world.”

Predictably, Asia’s yearning for peace, harmony and better lives had a reality check when ASEAN and its Western guests could not agree on a joint communique in Phnom Penh.

Undeterred, Cambodia issued the ASEAN communique before handing over the gavel to Indonesia’s President Joko Widodo, the group’s next year chair, who pledged that the region will be a “peaceful anchor for global stability” rather than “a proxy to any powers."

The G20 should be an economic forum

None of that came as a surprise. All the G20 preparatory meetings showed that the economic policy coordination – “Recover Together, Recover Stronger” – would take a back seat to vacuous geopolitics, destructive confrontations and a European style acrimony.

That is a great pity because the G20 offers a unique platform to deal with principal issues of global macroeconomic management and trade policies.

Unfortunately, the economic summitry since its inception in November 1975 at Rambouillet, France, never recovered from a fatal flaw: the world economy was based on a national currency -- the U.S. dollar -- whose management had to conform to U.S. national interests.

So, everybody is happy when the U.S. inflates its domestic demand, keeps its markets open and buys huge amounts of foreign goods and services. But when the U.S. inflation begins to accelerate, and rising interest rates lead to unfolding recessions, the U.S. is accused of (a) abusing its key currency position, (b) ruining the world economy, (c) hurting the most vulnerable developing countries, etc.

Those are exactly the problems the G20 consultations are supposed to avoid -- and correct -- through an appropriate policy coordination among its principal actors: the U.S. (24% of world GDP), the European Union (18% of world GDP) and China (18% of world GDP).

Why is it, then, that those three large economic systems allow the G20 to become a theater of global confrontation instead of serving the proper functioning of world economy?

People expecting that the U.S.-China summit solved all the G20 problems are in for a rude awakening. Washington and Beijing have plenty of room to manage their economic problems on their own, but that’s not true for the rest of the world.

With its huge energy resources, the U.S. can easily slow down inflation pressures in order to maintain a broadly accommodative monetary stance and keep the economy on its potential and noninflationary growth path.

East Asia is a bright spot of world economy

China has no inflation problems or particularly binding fiscal constraints. That leaves all the space that Beijing needs to stimulate its huge domestic demand and to keep intra-Asian trade flows in high gear.

Nothing Washington and Beijing discussed last Monday about Taiwan, North Korea or the NATO-Russia war has any bearing on the U.S. or China short-term economic outlook.

The Taiwan issue is the main and a totally unresolved U.S.-China problem. For China, Taiwan is part of its national territory. Washington’s military and political dealings with Taipei are a casus belli – because they are unacceptable violations of Beijing’s sovereignty.

Taiwan will, therefore, remain an open problem and a source of constant friction in U.S.-China relations for the foreseeable future.

Meanwhile, Southeast Asia will be arguably one of the brightest spots in world economy. That area has come a long way in terms of living standards, infrastructure, connectivity, the quality of economic management and political stability. It is a safe bet that ASEAN’s Indonesian chair will be true to its word about striving for peace, prosperity and independence from big power confrontations.

India fully shares those views. Its diplomacy has a long history of impatience for belligerent Eurocentric views of the world. Delhi now has a chance to return the G20 to its position of the most relevant global economic forum. That’s where Modi’s emphasis on unity is particularly important, because an effective policy coordination is impossible in a world of selfish pursuits of economic advantage.