Upping the Stakes
Today's G8 summit in Gleneagles has special significance for Russia. Not because it sincerely believes that that the topics of global warming and poverty in Africa being discussed are the most urgent ones in today's world. Perhaps the most important event for Moscow at the summit will be the announcement that next year's meeting of this elite club of world leaders will be held in Russia and that Russia will hold the presidency of the G8 for the whole year.
This announcement is significant for Moscow, because Russia's Western G8 partners have recently been calling more and more loudly for a reconsideration of Russia's membership in the G8 owing to authoritarian tendencies in Russian politics. Although there have not been any similar calls at high government levels as yet, they are clearly not very pleasing to the Kremlin. Thus, to Moscow's way of thinking, the present blessing of Vladimir Putin's reign in the elite international club should end all prejudicial talk about whether Russia should be in the G8.
The present summit is also supposed to clarify the question of how Russia intends to chair the G8. Its desire to put the problem of energy security at the top of the list at the next G8 summit is quite understandable. It is one of many world problems the solution of which realistically depends on Russia, among others. And Moscow would like to play with its G8 partners on its own, or at least on more familiar ground.
However, the choice of the key topic of the next summit is still not the most important thing. It doesn't betray all of the future president's intentions per se. Just prior to the present meeting of world leaders, Russia tried to show it had a whole series of interests that differed from the interests of the other G8 members. First, a Russian–Chinese summit was held in Moscow, at which the leaders of the two countries stated frankly that exporting the Western model to other countries was unacceptable to them. Then Russia, along with its counterparts in the Shanghai Cooperation Organization, urged the United States and NATO to set a deadline for the removal of their temporary bases in Central Asia.
On the surface, this may well look as if Moscow is demanding a hard-line (or even confrontational) approach to its Western G8 partners. However, in actual fact, this is probably not the case. Moscow can hardly afford it, because then when the term of its G8 presidency ends, its permanent membership in this elite club could also end. And the Kremlin knows this.
Therefore, the show of an alliance with China and the harsh rhetoric of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization aimed at the West are probably Moscow's attempts to increase its stakes in and influence on the position of G8 president in advance. Moscow evidently sees no other way to do this.
Gennady Sysoev, Commentator
All the Article in Russian as of July 07, 2005
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