Closeup Japan
Japan's road to G8
JAPAN is all set for the big event for which the country has been preparing for more than a year. The annual summit of the world's most powerful nations, commonly known as G8, is to start on Monday, July 7, at Lake Toya in Hokkaido. The three-day summit will mark the culmination of a relatively longer process that took-off in early April, with the development ministers from the eight countries meeting in Tokyo to formulate a joint guideline on development issues to be presented at the summit for the approval of the leaders.
This was followed by seven more ministerial-level meetings, the last being the foreign ministers' conference held last week in Kyoto. Of all those meetings, the environment, finance and foreign ministers' discussions are expected by the media to have a significant impact on the outcome of the summit.
These meetings were held in quick succession in Kobe, Osaka and Kyoto, and each came out with specific recommendations that the leaders are to follow-up when they meet in Lake Toya.
The Group of Eight is an informal set-up, and summit decisions do not carry any obligatory enforcement power. But since the eight countries jointly have powerful leverage on world economy and global politics, any decision the leaders reach carries significant weight and has the potential to influence the course of the economy as well as international politics.
Here lies the importance of this annual summit, which was launched in the mid-1970s amid the global economic crisis triggered by the first oil shock in 1973.
The troublesome situation of the early 1970s prompted the leading western nations to explore possibilities of joint initiatives that would help them to ease the pain inflicted by the worldwide depression that followed the oil shock.
Top-level financial officials from the United States and major European nations gathered in the US and decided to have regular discussions on economic problems. The turning point came in 1975, when President Giscard d'Estaing of France invited the leaders of five other western industrialised nations to the French town of Rambouillet.
Leaders of Britain, France, Italy, Japan, West Germany and the United States joined the meeting, which eventually initiated the process of regular annual discussions among them. Canada joined the group from the Second Summit in 1976 and the group came to be known as G7.
Earlier, the focus of attention of the leaders was more on the economic side and, as the world was still bitterly divided by the Cold War rivalry, there was not much scope for them to pick up political matters that went beyond the common platform of the Western alliance.
With the formal end of the Cold War in 1991 came another turning point, as Russia started joining the meetings from the same year as an observer. In 1997, Moscow became a full-fledged member, thus prompting a change in the name to G8. The end of Cold War rivalry also broadened the scope of the summit, and political and broader social issues were gradually included.
The upcoming Hokkaido summit will have its due share of various issues, ranging from fighting the new trend of cyber crime to the ongoing problem of overcoming the difficulties in the process of formulating a post-Kyoto Protocol framework that would be acceptable to all.
As the Kyoto Protocol is to expire in four years, it has now become crucial for the world to set a new abiding guideline that would reduce global warming. Japan, being the host nation for the Kyoto Protocol, has an ideal opportunity to make further contributions to the ongoing effort of reducing greenhouse gas emission.
The question of environment has been placed high on the agenda of the summit, along with financial problems and global political issues. Japanese Prime Minister Yasuo Fukuda had earlier launched his "Cool Earth 50" initiative, which calls for 50% reduction of global emission by 2050. It also stresses on a shift to an earth-friendly lifestyle through promoting the three Rs initiative of reduce, reuse and recycle.
As the host country, Japan intends to make the summit a turning point in the process of halting climate change for the benefit of the whole world. But, as the chair's statement after the environmental ministers' meeting was vague about concrete measures in tackling the climate change problem, it is hard to imagine that the leaders will be offering something significant on this crucial issue.
As for financial matters, G8 ministers expressed concern over the downward trend of world economy and concluded that elevated commodity prices, especially of oil and food, pose a serious challenge to stable growth worldwide.
They also agreed that, as bio-fuels posed both challenges and opportunities, it was essential to ensure the sustainability of their production and use. In this light, research and development of second-generation production methods from non-food materials should be a priority.
Terming commodity price increases as a global challenge, the finance ministers called for further partnership and dialogue between producers, consumers, and relevant institutions on food security. Soaring food price is another issue that Japan would like to see high on the agenda.
On global and regional issues, the just concluded foreign ministers' meeting set the outline that the leaders are supposed to follow. Zimbabwe and Afghanistan are two key issues that are to get special attention as separate statements on both were released at the end of the ministerial meeting, expressing grave concern about the situation in Zimbabwe and calling on Afghanistan's neighbours to play a constructive role for the stability of the country.
Peace and security in the Middle East and Iraq, as well as recent developments in North Korea, Sudan and Myanmar, will also draw the attention of the leaders. Japan is keen to see the leaders discuss the issue of the abduction of a Japanese national by North Korean agents, as Tokyo is concerned that any US move to de-list North Korea from the list of states sponsoring terrorism would weaken Tokyo's position in the Korean peninsula.
But, as the chairman's statement of G8 foreign ministers' meeting touched the abduction issue in just one sentence, combining it with other security and humanitarian concerns, the host is unlikely to expect much from other participants.
As Japan gets ready for the big event, Hokkaido is hoping the summit will portray it to the outside world as a scenic spot unspoiled by the rush of economic development.
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