Dmitry Medvedev to Face the Heads
// What marks the Russian President’s debut at the G8 summit
Today Russia’s President Dmitry Medvedev debuts at the key foreign policy event of the year – the G8 summit in Japan’s Hokkaidō. According to the information of Kommersant, when he meets with the heads of state, the new Russian leader will suggest his formula of addressing global challenges and a large-scale program of reforming the Group of Eight by means of its expansion.
Since taking office two months ago, the new Russian President has managed to introduce himself in the international arena several times. At the end of May he paid his first official visit to Kazakhstan and China, in June he debuted in Germany, hosted the CIS summit in St.-Petersburg and the Russia-EU summit in Khanty-Mansiysk, and last week he made his “gas” tour of Azerbaijan, Turkmenistan and again Kazakhstan. So, today the President is raising the level of his foreign policy activities. His international première is going to take place in Hokkaidō: He’ll communicate with the world’s top politicians, many of whom will meet him for the first time.
However, this communication won’t be on equal terms. Preliminary negotiations of ministers of the G8, which have been held in Japan for two months, have shown that the G8 members have the same stance regarding the majority of the disputed matters, whereas Russia is all alone with its special viewpoint. Moscow is convinced that the main reason for it is the USA’s predominance with the G8. Russia has repeatedly tried to become the articulator of the interests of those feeling aversion to the present state of affairs, and has used various tribunes for it: from the UN to regional organizations such as the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO). According to the information of Kommersant, Dmitry Medvedev intends to make an advance in the framework of the G8.
The Russian President has already launched an attack against the existing system with his speech at the Economic Forum in St.-Petersburg accusing the USA of the world economic crisis. Dmitry Medvedev presented this position in an interview he gave to Japanese journalists, “We must jointly combat global challenges. No state is able to fight them alone, however strong, powerful and influential it is.” This said, the Russian leader aims to emphasize a provision that multilateral efforts are more effective than “a single superpower’s dictates.” To make the efforts truly global, Moscow is expected to back the idea of expanding the G8 by means of admitting the most dynamically developing countries to it.
Moscow has had this intention for a long time. The current format of the Group of Eight as an alliance of the “economically developed democracies” makes Russia counter the single position of the western countries, which often reproach it with a lack of democracy. If the G8 is transformed into an association of the states that have real impact in the world (which Moscow promotes), China, India and Brazil will need to be included into the group (you can’t rule out lobbying the candidacies of Mexico and the Republic of South Africa as well). In this case the complaints against Russia as the sole authoritarian member of the elitist club will vanish, and Moscow will reckon with the new G8 states as its reliable allies in the struggle against the American influence. According to the information of Kommersant, the prospect of expanding the G8 was discussed at the meeting of the Foreign Ministers of Brazil, Russia, India and China (BRIC) in Russia’s Yekaterinburg in May. A mini-summit of BRIC is expected to be held in Hokkaidō, where the issue of the G8 expansion will be raised once again.
Dmitry Medvedev is likely to keep on with his advance against the USA on the finance front. In his interview ahead of the summit, the Russian President promised that he’ll bring up the question of the finance crisis and suggest a solution. “We need a new architecture of financial relations and a new system of organizations that will regulate financial processes of the international scale. We must not only maintain the single world currency, but also develop regional reserve currencies,” the president stated. Actually, in St.-Petersburg the Russian President suggested the same things. An official with the Russian Finance Ministry told Kommersant that Moscow wants to suggest its partners forming a “combined reserve basket of currencies,” where the Russian rouble will be included along with the dollar, euro and yen.
Dmitry Medvedev will express his view of the problem considered one of the most urgent matters by the Japanese organizers – the rocketing foodstuff prices. The President of Russia has touched upon this issue in his interview to the Japanese journalists. In his opinion, the increase in prices has been caused by “the wrong decisions to use quite a proportion of areas under crop to the ends of biofuel, as well as using genetically modified food and promoting it throughout the world.” So, the USA is also to be blamed for the foodstuff crisis. Nevertheless, Russia is eager to save the world: It can boost its production and supply larger volumes of foodstuff to the world markets.
As to the surge in energy carriers prices, you can hardly expect Russia to make proposals. The meeting of the Energy Ministers of the G8, which was held in early June, showed that the majority of the G8 members support boosting oil and gas production. Interestingly, Russia’s Energy Ministry Chief Sergey Shmatko turned out the only person to disapprove of it. And it’s unlikely that Dmitry Medvedev will add anything to it.
The Russian President will take an active part in thrashing out regional problems. An official with the Russian Foreign Ministry told Kommersant it was suggested that Russia should deliver a report on the Iranian file, and this idea was welcomed. It will allow Russia to underscore its role in the settling the Iranian nuclear crisis. Dmitry Medvedev will probably focus on the thesis recently voiced by the Russian Foreign Office– the inadmissibility of Israel’s nuclear attack against Iran. Moscow will evidently oppose taking harsh measures against Myanmar and Sudan, where Russia has its economic interests. Only Zimbabwe can be left without Moscow’s protection – Russian businessmen have barely invested in that country.
Regardless of his ambitious plans, Dmitry Medvedev’s debut at the G8 summit won’t necessarily ensue a change in Russia’s position with the Group of Eight. Though Moscow can spend much money that it gets from its oils sells to improve its international status, the rest of the elitist club will hardly side with Russia. At the same time, Russia’s staking on attracting such powerful countries as China and India will weaken the USA, but it’ll hardly make Moscow that weighty.
Alexander Gabuev; Vassily Golovnin, ITAR-TASS correspondent in Japan, specially for Kommersant
All the Article in Russian as of July 07, 2008
|
