To join or not to join?
Ding Ying

BRITISH Prime Minister Gordon Brown said in January he supported China to join the Group of Eight (G8). His words echoed those of French President Nicolas Sarkozy who suggested that the five developing countries of China, India, Brazil, South Africa and Mexico be included in the G8. Talk of including these countries actually started several years ago. Ever since 2003 when China first participated in a G8 summit, many politicians and economists have discussed the possibility of the country becoming a full-fledged G8 member. Canada, for example, has made similar suggestions as well. The G8’s current members are Britain, Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, the United States and Russia.
Foreign affairs analysts believe that although China will not join the G8 any time soon, its participation would benefit the country and the organization itself in terms of strategic considerations. But they also caution that China must determine how much it would be willing to comply with other requirements set by the group’s Western members. “China will join the G8 sooner or later, because its participation can bring the country more advantages than disadvantages,” said Zhen Bingxi, a senior research fellow specializing in world economic studies at the Chinese Institute of International Studies (CIIS). First, with recent changes in the world economic structure, some developing nations now account for larger portions of the global economy, Zhen said. As one of them, and also as the largest of them, China has seen tremendous economic growth in the past years. According to the latest figures from the International Monetary Fund (IMF), China has been the third biggest economy in the world since 2007, behind the United States and Japan. The report also said the per-capita gross domestic product (GDP) in China exceeded that of Japan in 2007, based on purchasing power parity (PPP).
Second, China has maintained a rapid pace of development since its opening-up policy was first implemented in the late 1970s, Zhen said. Especially in the last five years, China’s annual economic growth rates all have exceeded 10 percent. “China now is the most powerful engine that is accelerating the world’s economic growth,” Zhen said. The IMF report, published in late December 2007, reduced its forecast for world economic growth to 4.7 percent from 5.2 percent in October 2007. In the meantime, China’s contribution to the global GDP growth rate had reached 27 percent measured according to its PPP, while that of the United States was about 10 percent. By measuring economic growth according to the current exchange rate, China’s contribution to the global GDP growth rate was more than 20 percent, while that of the United States was 14 to 15 percent.
Third, joining the G8 could help China to better cooperate with the industrialized nations when dealing with global issues, such as climate change, environment protection and saving energy, Zhen said. In the meantime, China’s role as the largest developing country in the world will enable other developing countries to have more chances to express their opinions while mapping out the game rules for establishing a new global economic order, he said. Fourth, China’s micro-adjustment and control policies on the economy and financing are influencing the world significantly by coordinating the global economy, Zhen said. The World Bank also has said the coordination of exchange rates would not be complete and thorough without China’s involvement. Only with the country’s participation, could decisions on the exchange rate adjustments make sense.
Lin Limin, a scholar at the China Institutes of Contemporary International Relations (CICIR), said that the invitation for China to join the G8 reflects the country’s improved status in the world. But he also pointed out that the G8 was caught in a dilemma, because it could no longer represent the world economy and needed China’s participation to improve its legal and representative stances. China’s involvement would be significant to settling the global problems the G8 members face, he said.
Ever vigilant
Both Zhen and Lin noted that although the advantages of joining the G8 sounded very attractive, China should be cautious in deciding whether to join or not, especially when the timing is not perfect now. Chen Fengying, Director of the World Economics Studies Center at the CICIR, said in the monthly magazine China Development Observer that while China’s economic influence continues to rising, the country also faces bigger risks in five areas. First, its foreign exchange reserves are now very high, because of its trade surplus and the amount of foreign capital that is flowing into the country. This means that China must be careful about an external imbalance. Second, China is under much pressure from Europe and the United States to let its currency appreciate. Third, trade disputes between China and other industrialized nations occur frequently, so that China must deal with more product safety and technological barriers. Fourth, while the internationalization of global financial systems is picking up speed, China has to face risks related to internal and external financing. Fifth, China has come under increasing fire from industrialized countries over its responsibility for emitting greenhouse gases that cause global warming.
Zhen from the CIIS said in spite of the economic issues, China must also consider related political pressure before it agrees to join the G8. “Not all G8 members hope that China joins the circle, especially Japan and the United States,” he said. Under such circumstances, those who oppose China’s involvement will set higher thresholds for the country on human rights, environment protection and even ideology, he said. Previously, Bonnie Glaser at the Washington D.C.-based Center for Strategic and International Studies, pointed out that the current G8 members are all “democratic countries,” and that China as a socialist market economy does not fit this standard. Glaser believes that the Western countries might push China to change some of its political policies when they invite the country to join the G8.
“If China is eager to join the G8, its political and economic interests might be hurt,” Zhen said, adding that China needs to think over the following four questions before it makes a final decision: Does it possess the necessary economic conditions to become a G8 member? Is it the perfect timing? How will China coordinate its relations with the group’s other members? And will it be able to shoulder all those responsibilities that G8 membership entails? Zhen stressed that based on these considerations, it would be safer for China to join the G8 in one or two years. The current 8+5 mode, which includes the current eight members plus China, India, Brazil, South Africa and Mexico as summit participants, is more suitable for China, he said.
Zhen pointed out that there are several plans under discussion for expanding the G8. The first is the G9 mode, which consists of the existing G8 members and China. The next is the G13, which includes the current G8 members and China, Brazil, India, Mexico and South Africa. The last is the G3 mode, which involves only China, the EU and the United States. Zhen said that if China decides to participate, the G13 mode would be the most practical. The G3, which excludes Japan and Russia, is a fairly radical plan and would not be realistic, he said. “Under the G9 mode, China’s voice will be very vague, and the G13 mode can help the developing countries to play bigger roles in the game,” Zhen said.
Development of the G8
The G8 is an economic and political organization set up to dialogue and bring about change among the world’s most influential countries. It evolved from the original Group of Seven industrialized nations, which was formed in November 1975. At that time, the leaders of six Western countries-Britain, France, Italy, Japan, the United States and former West Germany-held an economic summit in France to discuss the global economic situation and coordinate policies to reinvigorate their economies. In June 1976, Canada joined the group at the G7 Summit, also called the Seven Western Countries Summit Conference, during which the G7 took shape. From then on, the members have held annual economic summits. In 1997, then Russian President Boris Yeltsin was invited to fully participate in the G7 summit held in Denver, Colorado, and the G8 was formally created. In 2003, with the rapid development of China, India, Brazil, Mexico and South Africa, leaders of the five developing countries were invited to participate in the summit, creating an 8+5 mode.

(The Daily Mail-Beijing Review Articles Exchange Item)
 

War clouds over Mideast
Linda Heard

RUSSIAN President Vladimir Putin was recently quoted as saying, “No one can seriously think that Iran would dare attack the US. Instead of pushing Iran into a corner, it would be far more sensible to think together how to help Iran become more predictable and transparent”. Finally, a voice of reason amid a cacophony of belligerence! Indeed, the way Iran is being treated by the so-called “international community” a euphemism for nations hanging onto the coattails of Uncle Sam, does little except provide fodder for hard-liners and their incendiary rhetoric. As long as Iran is under siege it will lock down rather than open up. I’m reminded of the competition between the sun and the wind that saw a man pulling his coat around him. Both boasted that they would be the one to force the man to remove his coat. The wind whipped up a gale but the man simply held on tightly to the garment. Then the sun shone brightly and you know what happened next.
Iran is being demonized for a purpose. The deliberately orchestrated hype and fear mongering obscures the reality. There is no evidence that Iran is working toward the production of nuclear weapons as a US National Intelligence Estimate clearly stated and far from threatening its neighbors it is going out of its way to extend the hand of friendship to all except Israel, which, by the way, President Ahmadinejad did not advocate wiping off the map. His words were mistranslated and the Western media shirked its duty to correct the mistake. The fact is Iran remains the last obstacle to America’s complete domination of this region. If Washington could force Iran to do its bidding its hegemonic ambitions in this part of the world including control over its resources would be attained. This, my friends, is the bottom line. This is why Iraq was invaded and occupied and this is why Iran is being groomed to go the same way.
Weakening Iran is just another phase of the neoconservative New Middle East itinerary, which has nothing to do with spreading freedom and democracy and all to do with increasing US power and that of its regional satellite Israel. If you look at it from the American/Israeli perspective, a defanged Iran might translate into a compliant Shiite population, and the eventual demise of Hezbollah and Hamas due to a lack of funding and weapons. But this truth isn’t palatable to most ordinary people and flies in the face of international law. So, just as the US contrived to come up with a pretext — or rather a series of pretexts — to invade Iraq, it has had to find excuses to sanction Tehran, perhaps as a prelude to military action.
Indeed, a military assault on Iran looks ever more likely. Now that the nuclear weapons pretext has been shelved, US officials have changed tack and are now accusing the Iranian Revolutionary Guard of supplying Iraqi Shiite militias with weapons, cash and training with which to attack US forces. They say Iran is using surrogates to wage a de facto war on the US. Gen. David Petraeus and US Ambassador to Iraq Ryan Crocker are expected to reinforce this message to Congress today; not that President Bush requires approval from lawmakers to launch strikes on Iran. The Daily Telegraph has quoted “a Whitehall assessment” to the effect “a strong statement” from Gen. Petraeus “about Iran’s intervention in Iraq could set the stage for a US attack on Iranian military facilities”. Indicators that there may be a looming conflagration include the recent resignation of head of CENTCOM Adm. William Fallon, who famously said “there will be no attack on Iran on my watch”. Then came the botched attack by the Iraqi military backed up by the US on pro-Iranian Shiite militias in Basra, which defeated the purpose of eradicating hostile entities by, instead, bringing them together to expose the feebleness of the Iraqi Army whose members deserted or switched sides in large numbers. At the same time, Israel is engaged in a five-day homeland security exercise that, according to Ha’aretz will “include a simulated missile attack on civilian areas — some missiles with chemical warheads”. Lebanese Prime Minister Fouad Siniora has urged his army to remain alert, while Hezbollah believes the emergency drill is a precursor to a new war.
The Israeli Premier Ehud Olmert is trying hard to allay Lebanese and Syrian suspicions but when it comes to Iran he has made his position clear. He says he is absolutely certain Iran is seeking nuclear weapons and has called for a “concerted world action” to prevent it from attaining such “nonconventional capacity”. Another piece of the puzzle may be found in the presence of US warships off the coast of Lebanon, while, according to reports, the USS Abraham Lincoln strike force is heading for the Gulf along with a US nuclear submarine. It’s also worth noting that Vice President Dick Cheney and Defense Minister Robert Gates have recently been touring the region and holding discussions with its leaders. Countries here are caught between the devil and the deep blue sea on this issue. Most moderate predominately Sunni states fear the unencumbered rise of Iran that would empower Shiite populations and result in a power play. But at the same time, they don’t want another war on their doorstep in which they will be coerced to take sides for when the dust settles Iran will still be their neighbor and memories in this part of the world tend to be long. The mistrust between Sunnis and Shiites engendered by the occupation of Iraq has tragically fueled this divide, which plays right into the hands of the US and Israel. A visiting alien might wonder why Muslim nations sharing the same turf and seas and with so much in common can’t get together preferring instead to allow a foreign power to set their neighborhood alight to further its geopolitical interests with virtually no risk to itself. On second thoughts, one doesn’t have to be an extraterrestrial to be shocked at the ridiculousness of that.

—Arab News



Why Muslim media has to look at big picture
Dr Farish A Noor

AS SOMEONE who studies the phenomenon of political Islam, I have, understandably, been reading much of the international Muslim Press over the past few years. In particular I have focused on the International Islamist media — and by this I am referring to the newspapers, web sites, journals and magazines produced by the many Islamist organisations, NGOs, political parties and social movements all over the world. One factor that comes to mind immediately is how parochial and narrow the worldview of much of the international Islamist media has become. More often than not the reportage of world affairs, particularly by Islamist media in the non-Arab world, is focused more on the goings-on in Muslim societies and Arab-Muslim societies in particular. Reading through the material produced by the Islamist media in Pakistan, Malaysia and Indonesia for instance one learns more about the developments in Egypt, Turkey, Morocco, the Gulf states and Iran than anywhere else.
This does not mean to imply that the developments in these countries are not important, or that they are of no relevance to the development of Islamist movements in Asia or Africa or even Europe. But one does wonder how Islamists in Asia view the rest of the planet, and whether they realise that so much else is going on beyond the narrow frontiers of the Muslim world. More troubling is that the view of the West is often shaped by the Islamist lens that they wear, and here again the ethnocentric and religio-centric biases of the Islamist Press stands out in bold relief. We are all well acquainted by now with the controversy over the recently-released film Fitna by the Dutch politician Geert Wilders. But how many Islamist papers reported the fact that during the protests against the recent Gulf War more than half a million Berliners came out into the streets of Berlin to protest against the invasion of Iraq? And what about the other civil-society led demonstrations organised in London, Paris, Madrid, Rome, Barcelona?
But perhaps the most troublesome thing about the Islamist media today is the impression it gives of being primarily and solely concerned with the affairs of the Muslim world alone; to the point where the overwhelming majority of the rest of the human race remains neglected and their stories remain untold. Yet if we were to look at the developments in the world since 11 September 2001 it should be clear to us all by now that many of the major geo-political shifts we have seen reflect and mirror many of the developments that we also see in the Muslim world. Two examples stand out: The first has to do with the latest scramble to re-colonise Africa in no uncertain terms. If we were to cast our minds back to the late 1990s, some of us may recall that it was even trendy in some Western technocratic circles to mumble the mantra of ‘saving Africa from itself’.

—Khaleej Times