WHEN the financial crisis erupted, one of the participants at the G7 economic summit which had been convened to try to work out what could be done looked round and saw that the nations whose help was needed to solve the crisis were not sitting round the table.
replica rolexThe G7 nations -- the US, Japan, Germany, France, Britain, Italy and Canada plus Russia as an observer -- represented the power structure of the late 20th century. The rise of Asia has changed the game. The emergence in particular of China, India and Brazil as major economic forces made bodies such as the International Monetary Fund, the World Bank and G7 itself no longer properly representative nor relevant to today's world.
The political response, in surprisingly short order, was to convene the G20 --the top wealthy nations -- so that the right people would in future be sitting round the table, and working to coordinate a global response to the crisis. Together, they account for four-fifths of the world's production.
It was one of Gordon Brown's better achievements. It met in London for the first time a year last April, and every leader came because they wanted to be photographed with the newly inaugurated President Obama. But the fact they did not then simply return home clutching their souvenir photos but instead agreed to work towards co-ordinated solutions to the crisis was largely down to Brown's chairing. It was a positive achievement to set against the negatives of his premiership.
Unfortunately, that momentum is failing fast. G20 meets this weekend in Toronto, but already shows distressing signs of factionalism rather than global vision. G20 policy has switched in 12 months from promoting fiscal stimulus to demanding fiscal retrenchment. Regulatory policy is Fake Gucci Handbags becoming less coordinated by the day, and the idea of a new global framework for banking seems hopelessly stalled.
Critics fear it is fast becoming as pointless as G7. The politicians turn up because the media is there and will give the world the impression that these leaders are at the centre of events; the media turn up because the politicians are there. But then nothing Franck Muller Watch Replica much happens though both sides pretend it has in order to justify their expenses to the folks back home.
The tragedy of this is that the world really does need global co- ordination and a policy-setting forum. It needs to find some way of minimising the stresses caused by this tectonic shift in power, if the imbalances that result are not going to continue to cause recurring instability -- political as well as economic. We need a forum to manage the transition to the new world order. If G20 is not to deliver that, who will?
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