By Gregor Peter Schmitz

Pittsburgh, a city built on steel production, is showing its tough side as it hosts the G-20 summit. The 4,000 police officers eye anyone walking past the city center’s cordoned-off streets with distrust. Military vehicles block the city’s many prominent bridges, while security forces quickly use tear gas on the handful of demonstrators who are protesting for more action on climate change and against capitalism.

But the mood at the Phipps Conservatory, where the leaders of the G-20 nations dined on Thursday, the opening day of the summit, was likely more cheerful. According to sources close to the delegations, there was an atmosphere of “trust” and of team spirit on display on Thursday evening. The mood was so intimate, that the Western leaders apparently found time to initiate their Chinese colleagues into the peculiarities of coalition governments and multi-party political systems.

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