#16
Russian Government Paper Urges PRC Role in 'G-9', UNSC
Rossiyskaya Gazeta
30 April 2003
Article by Vsevolod Ovchinnikov:
"How Many Will Five Plus Seven Make?"

As our newspaper has already reported, via his prime minister, Jean-Pierre Raffarin, French President Jacques Chirac has officially invited PRC Chairman Hu Jintao to the next G-8 summit, to be held on French soil in June.

This is not the first time that a further expansion of the G-7, which became the G-8 after Russia joined it, has been suggested. Throughout the first three postwar decades it was customary to think that the "Big Five" victorious powers which were the permanent members of the UN Security Council (the United States, the USSR, Britain, France, and China) made the weather in world politics. And that the "Big Seven" group of leading industrial powers, established in the mid-70s (the United States, Japan, Germany, France, Britain, Italy, and Canada) made the weather in the world economy or, to put it in specific terms, co-ordinated anticrisis measures on a global scale.

However, the functions of these two bodies, created at different times and for different purposes, have come to intersect with increasing frequency. Moreover, the collapse of the USSR put an end to the American-Soviet con was the basis of the bipolar world. The international community finds itself facing new challenges and threats. There is now an urgent need to combine the roles of the two mechanisms referred to above. Moscow's inclusion in the G-7 was the first step.

The most logical method of interlinking the two mechanisms, however, would be through the formula "seven plus five equals nine". First, this means only Russia's but also China's participation in the summits of leading economic powers. And second, it means the expansion of the framework of preliminary consultations in the UN Security Council toward inviting representatives of Japan, Germany, Italy, and Canada to take part together with its current permanent members.

The suggestion of creating a "G-9" involving China seems timely and logical. The point is that the UN structure created more than half a century ago does not reflect the changes that have occurred in the world. Since the time when the five victorious powers became the permanent members of the UN Security Council the correlation of forces in the international arena has changed.

States such as Japan and Germany have grounds for claiming a political role appropriate to their present economic potential. And Moscow supports them in that. On the other hand, after a quarter of a century of reforms China has increased its gross domestic product sixfold, outpacing Russia three times over in terms of that indicator and catching up with Canada to take seventh place in the world. In addition, it possesses a nuclear missile potential. The fact is that in all parameters Beijing is worthy to be a member of the "G-9".

It is appropriate to recall that in 2000, when Germany handed on the baton of the annual summits to Japan, Chancellor Schroeder took the initiative of inviting the PRC chairman to the Okinawa meeting in order to turn the G-8 into a "G-9". The Chinese side's response at the time was that it was ready to expand ties with the G-8 because the G-8 played a positive role in strengthening international cooperation and security. However, then-PRC Chairman Jiang Zemin did not take up the invitation to come to Okinawa. So how will his successor Hu Jintao act three years on?

Following China's entry to the WTO, Beijing's proclamation as the 2008 Olympics capital, and Shanghai's selection as the venue for the 2010 world exhibition, becoming a member of the "G-9" would be very much to the point. In the Moscow declaration Russia and China proclaimed the formation of a multipolar world a main aim of their foreign policy. And Beijing's incorporation into a "G-9" would undoubtedly facilitate this. If Hu Jintao follows his May debut at the St. Petersburg jubilee by setting off for France to the "G-9" summit in June, his name will be firmly established in the cohort of world leaders.

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