Doubts hang over Japan’s G8

Professor Riccardo Moro, from Torino University’s faculty of political economy, raises questions about the changing nature of the world order. And whether meaningful global decisions can still emerge from the G8 summit.

There is one simple thing that should be done straight away: an immediate ban on the emission of bond futures on food goods. It would act as a soother for the market. It would serve to “calm” the price crisis that is starving the poorest countries, those countries who are forced to import rice and wheat. All it would take would be the will to follow through. But it doesn’t look likely that the G8 have it in them.

Faced by the rise of new actors and dynamics it is increasingly obvious that the G8 is no longer the main drawing board that it used to be in the past. There are many important issues that don’t make it into the agenda of the meeting between the so called “eight industrialised countries”. In fact, it looks like they don’t make it onto agendas anywhere. Not for now, at least.

A new China?

Take China, for example. Certainly it is an “aggressive” country in terms of its economic and commercial policies, apparently detracting itself from any kind of regulation. But maybe this isn’t the whole story: it seems to me that there is, or that there is starting to be, a new awareness in Beijing, a greater consciousness of the fact that an increasing weight at an international level is matched by the need to accept a system of rules if one is to play out one’s role to its full extent.

Look at the role that China had in the issue of the two Koreas, where China was able to push North Korea out of its nuclear stance. If Beijing had not actively taken on the role it did, it would have never happened. And, after all, it is not as if China had much to win from the debacle. It was more of an action to demonstrate that there is the will to contribute towards the creation of international stability.

The Chinese government has recently accepted to participate to a consultation panel on what, in technical terms, is called “sustainable landing” – in other words a series of meetings hosted by the Ocse to deal with external debt in poor countries. It isn’t a coincidence that donors are now speaking of “sustainable” and not “responsible” loans; a change in terminology that was first suggested by China. “If we call the system of rules regulating loans towards external debt, it means that the system we had before was irresponsible. This is something we cannot accept. Talking of a commitment towards a sustainable system is, because it means we are working to make the system more sustainable for the beneficiaries”. The fact is that it is the first time that China has sat down to discuss common policies.

A new world order?

I would like to list a few other points that are marginal only in appearance. The announcement that the crisis between Ecuador and Columbia was brought to an end during the meeting between South American countries. Neither the UN nor any of the G8 countries were able to intervene at all.

The 2 year crisis of Guinea Conakry, and now the crisis of Mugabe’s Zimbawe, has seen the African Union take centre stage in the mediation processes.

The Arab Legue has taken on a much more important role than in the past when it comes to managing crises; from Lebanon to Somalia. And Egypt, within the Arab League, has become the promoter and guarantor of the dialogue between Hamas and Israel.

There are new players. While a few years ago the G8 was seen as a geometric place, even an alternative to the UN security council, now the symmetry is warped and variable.

If there are new dynamics it is also true that there is not yet a well defined scenario, either. And maybe there never will be. Maybe we are entering into a permanent condition of change. What is for sure is that we are, today, in a stage in which the equilibrium is being redefined.

There are new networks, like that created between Brasil, India and South Africa, that, however, do not have an institutional set up. Today it is hard to find a space where decisions are truly “taken”, or even where they are formed. While before it could be seen that, through the G8, rich countries would initiate decisional processes that would continue in other bodies, like the World Bank or the International Monetary Fund, or even the United Nations, today this mechanism is not so clearly defined.

The G8’s role has slowly diminished, but has not been matched by the creation of another, more or less regular space, where decisions and discourses can be developed. In the same way that in the financial spheres there are new actors and dynamics (it is enough to look at the fact that immigrant remittances overtook aid to development or the new protagonists like India, the Arab countries and China), politically there have been new movements, a less stable picture than before.

What is going on in Arab countries is interesting: Doha, in Qatar, is hosting many international summits. It looks like Finland in the 70s …

Find out more

www.g8summit.go.jp