BEIJING, June 27 (Xinhua) -- As the world economy faces uncertainties and gloom, G20 leaders are widely expected to do something at the Osaka summit to send a message of opposing protectionism and tackle challenges to growth.

The summit, to be held from Friday to Saturday in Osaka, Japan, focuses on issues including the global economy, trade and investment, innovation, development, environment and energy.

Twenty years after the establishment of the G20 and 10 years after the 2008 global financial crisis, the world is at a new crossroad.

The latest World Trade Outlook Indicator reading of 96.3 remains at the weakest level since 2010, signalling continued falling trade growth in the first half of 2019. In early June, the World Bank lowered its global growth forecast for 2019 to a "weaker-than-expected" 2.6 percent, 0.3 percentage points below a previous estimate in January.

To prevent anti-globalization headwinds from further hurting the global economy, the G20 members must shoulder their responsibility for putting a stop to protectionism, before protectionism and unilateralism inflict too much harm.

The G20 should not let protectionism and unilateralism erode the multilateral trading system and hinder the efforts for building an open world economy and realizing robust, sustainable, balanced and inclusive growth.

The G20 is comprised of 19 countries plus the European Union, from both the developing and developed worlds. They account for two-thirds of the world's population, over 80 percent of gross world product and about 80 percent of global trade.

China, a G20 member and the world's largest developing country, advocates free trade, safeguards the rule-based multilateral trading system, and supports the reform of the World Trade Organization to improve its operating efficiency so that it can play a bigger role in global economic governance.

Protectionist and unilateralist practices are like turning back the wheel of history, only to get nowhere. The G20 Osaka summit needs to point to the right direction for the world economy and figure out how to end protectionism.