G20: What the pundits are saying
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You have to feel sorry for the poor Canadians. With a right-wing government hell-bent on massive public expenditure cuts, they have to fund not just one grand international summit with the G20 this weekend, but two, with the G8 summit on Friday.
ADRIAN HAMILTON , Independent: “You have to feel sorry for the poor Canadians. With a right-wing government hell-bent on massive public expenditure cuts, they have to fund not just one grand international summit with the G20 this weekend, but two, with the G8 summit on Friday. And in separate places. The G8 summit takes place in Muskoka, the G20 meeting in Toronto. All the security, the transport and accommodation doubled. And for what? So that Canada’s Prime Minister, Stephen Harper, can play host to world leaders and preen himself on his and his country’s continued importance?”
PUBLIUS , Western Standard: “Henry Kissinger was supposed to have said, of the Iran-Iraq War, that it was too bad they couldn't both lose. The same sentiment applies to the G8/G20 summiteers and their attendant protesters, which are about to descend on the Imperial Capital like a biblical plague. The Toronto-haters, all 30-million or so, are no doubt loving this seemingly divine act of retribution for the National Policy, NEP and pretty much everything that has gone wrong since Confederation.”
THE STAKES
MICHAEL STUEMER , RiaNovosti.com: “For the time being, the euro has been saved. But few are convinced that the rescue of Greece can be repeated, and still fewer believe that Greece can pull itself out of its misery. Spain presents an even tougher challenge. And if the euro fails, there is a fair chance that the EU could break up — at least this is what George Soros says, and some of his other predictions have been correct.”
JEAN PISANI-FERRY , Taipei Times: “Finally, instead of managing common challenges, as happened last year, the G20 members will need to manage their divergence. This will be a major test of resilience for an institution that demonstrated effectiveness in the crisis but still has to pass the test posed by this new phase in the global economy. The Toronto summit will provide a first opportunity to assess the G20’s ability to adapt to new conditions.”
JILL SHEFFIELD , Women Deliver: “If Prime Minister Harper can deliver a plan that is well-funded, comprehensive, and can be put into action, the world may well meet Millennium Development Goal 5, including the reduction of maternal mortality by three-quarters, by 2015. We may have a shot at breaking the grave trend of maternal death that has haunted the lives and futures of our women for decades.”
INTERNATIONAL AIDS SOCIETY : “In 2005 the international community made an historic commitment to achieve universal access to HIV prevention, treatment and care by 2010 at the G8 summit in Gleneagles, Scotland. Despite important progress, the world is not yet on track to achieve this commitment, and there are troubling signs that donors and implementing countries are capping or shrinking funding for the HIV response. . . As G8 leaders gather, they must not ignore the fact that 2010 is the deadline established by the G8 itself to achieve universal access to HIV prevention, treatment and care for all those in need.”
SVEN BEHRENDT , Carnegie Middle East Center: “The verdict is still out if the G20, facing singular national interests, can effectively translate principles into more concrete policies and develop a financial architecture that defends a dynamic global economy. If anything, the financial crisis demonstrated that good governance, accountability, and transparency are not some lofty ideals, but have a monetary value — trillions of dollars. The G20 needs to take the lead in finding a solution.”
STEWART M. PATRICK , Council on Foreign Relations: “From the U.S. perspective, the G20 has the potential to transform world politics in at least four positive ways. First, it promises to temper — and perhaps erode — some of the destructive bloc dynamics that exist in the United Nations. Second, it offers a framework to encourage emerging powers to accept new responsibilities. Third, it promises to give existing organizations like the United Nations some healthy competition. And fourth, it portends a more fluid negotiating environment, in which the United States has the greatest room to maneuver. To fulfill this long-term potential, the G20 will first need to consolidate its impressive achievements to date — beginning this week in Canada.”
SOURCES OF DIFFICULTY
GAVIN HEWIT , BBC: “The Europeans are the New Spartans. They head to the G20 in Toronto in their hair-shirts, newly frugal and stern in their attitude towards debt. . . President Obama has been firing off letters warning of repeating the mistakes of the past, when stimulus packages were withdrawn too quickly. . . The divide between the Europeans and Americans will dominate the meetings in Canada.”
JEREMY THOMAS , www.timeslive.co.za: “Make no mistake, all banks operating in Europe are under threat — and you can see it by the price of credit default swaps on the banks themselves, including global giants Goldman Sachs, Deutsche Bank, Citigroup and Morgan Stanley. Clearly, the banks are eyeing each other with a great deal of suspicion. There is not a lot of investor confidence in the developed world at present. Which means it is going to be a long, ugly weekend for delegates at the G20 conference.”
RICHARD YOUNGS , Eurasia Review: “It is now commonplace to note how the G20 reflects a shift in economic and political power towards Asian and other emerging economies. But the nature of debates within the G20 are even more illuminating: Asian nations that emerged from their own financial crisis over a decade ago in robust shape say openly that they are not inclined to follow advice on financial regulation from Europe’s floundering economies.”
WHY IT WON’T SUCCEED
NIU XINCHUN , GlobalTimes.cn: “I don’t have high expectations of the G20. This year sees the fourth G20 summit. During the last three summits, it was much easier for countries to reach agreements, such as implementing stimulus packages, because everybody was trapped in the crisis, and they were sitting on the same sinking boat. But now, everyone has recovered, although to different degrees, and begun to make selfish calculations again.”
DAVID FRUM , Marketplace radio: “Sadly — or hilariously, depending on your point of view — this costly extravaganza originated as an attempt to break free from over-elaborate meetings. Thirty-five years ago, then-French President Valery Giscard d’Estaing proposed a face-to-face get-together for the leaders of the world’s big free market economies. No agenda, no resolutions — just a rare chance for human relationship building and candid off-the-record conversation among the leaders of the world’s biggest capitalist democracies. It was a good idea then; it would be a good idea now. . . The reasonable modest initial idea — mission escalation, cost inflation and the final result, a gargantuan bloat that serves only its own purposes.”
GAUTAM CHIKERMANE , Hindustan Times: “Even as ripples of optimism around fixing the financial sector flow from the recently-concluded meeting of G20 ministers and central bank governors at Busan in South Korea, the fact is that the 1,543-word June 5 communiqué gives little confidence about the fixing what I believe is the major problem in global finance — the incentive structure. So, even as the communiqué waxes eloquent about important ingredients for making a new financial soup — greater transparency, improved quality and quantity of bank capital, reduced moral hazard, making the financial sector responsible to pay for government intervention, setting up of a single high-quality global accounting standards and so on — it is simply handing a new recipe to the same cooks (or shall we call them crooks?) who are now better known for turning the previous soup toxic.”
DIDIER JACOBS , Institute for Policy Studies: “In our global Senate, a single country can filibuster bills. By putting a high premium on the status quo, the consensus rule produces conservative economic policy . . . the modesty of the G20’s collective action is rooted in the consensus rule — the one-vote filibuster. Powerful special interests thus have plenty of venues to put sand in the gears of reform.”
WHY IT HAS ALREADY SUCCEEDED
ARVIND SUBRAMANIAN , BaselineScenario.com: “It is the fact of the G20 that allowed (U.S. Treasury) Secretary (Timothy) Geithner to convert the China currency issue from a bilateral U.S.-China matter (on which little progress had been made for many years) to one in which a broader set of countries had a stake. The public pronouncements by Brazil and India earlier this year reinforced this ‘multilateralization’ of China’s currency undervaluation. This multilateralization had two positive effects. It forced China to take more seriously the international consequences of its currency policy. And it also made the politics of changing policy easier because China is seen not as caving to bilateral pressure but as responding to the wider international community. Regardless of what happens at the G20 Summit in Toronto over this weekend, the G20 can already count the change in China’s currency policy as its victory.”
The IRISH TIMES : “The G20 can claim legitimacy because it is now more representative of the whole world rather than only the most developed states, producing some 85 per cent of international income. That is one of the most important shifts in world politics since the end of the Cold War. It brings emerging states like India, China, Brazil, Indonesia, South Africa and Mexico to the table, along with relative newcomers like Russia and long-standing members of the club like the US, Canada, Japan, Germany, the U.K., France and Italy.”
WHY IT HAS ALREADY FAILED
EZRA SURUMA , Brookings Institution: “The fact that G20 membership is largely based on economic size and less on population has resulted in the virtual exclusion of the African continent. Yet, the G20 has become the most significant forum for the discussion of the world economy including the resolution of poverty and the future of the multilateral institutions. The exclusion of Africa means that it will not have an opportunity to contribute to the discussions on world poverty, aid and trade, which are core economic issues affecting the continent’s future.”
JANE YOUNG , Pundit.co.nz: “So as for the agenda . . . it will be heavily focused on Europe’s debt burden, and given the gravity of that it is likely many of the other prescient issues of our time — financial reform, climate change and pesky old poverty in developing nations, will be sidelined. Think what a billion dollars could do for some of those issues . . . but let’s not get sidetracked.”
source thestar.com
Sep 8, 2010 - 03:13
