PARIS (Reuters) – French President Nicolas Sarkozy on Saturday said it was “not reasonable” to gather the Group of Eight (G8) leaders at an annual summit without the participation of strong emerging countries such as China and India.“I am among those who think that it is not reasonable to gather the G8,” Sarkozy said at a conference held by the ruling UMP party in Paris two days before the G8 annual summit starts in Japan.
“I think it is not reasonable to continue to meet as eight to solve the big questions of the world, forgetting China — one billion 300 million people — and not inviting India — one billion people,” Sarkozy said.
This is not new news. France and Britain have both supported bringing in China, India, Brazil, Mexico and South Africa. The G8 is a series of summits on various issues by nations (and the EU) who have influence and means to influence world conditions and directions.
It is a global summit, concerned to a great extent with “Globablization”, the One World idea. They also discuss issues and make agreements amongst the members on common issues such as terrorism, the economy, the environment, crime, etc. The G8 is of course an intensely political group.
Who are the current members? The US, Russia, UK, France, Canada, Italy, Germany and the EU. Other nations are generally invited to the summits as guests.
What are the qualifications of the member nations? To a great extent, it is economic, but not completely. Most of the G8 members also rank in the top 10 among nations in Gross National Product. This is not true of Russia, however, which ranks low in most financial indicators. For financial considerations, China would be a logical addition, since it ranks high among the nations financially, although not in the top 10. India, while growing, is still far behind the other “industrialized” nations.
Some of the nations in the G8 have nuclear weapons. It may be considered that Russia is in the G8 because it has nuclear weapons and space technology, and seeks strongly to influence world affairs, even though it is not a strong financial partner nor a “donor nation”. However, not all nations with nuclear capability are in the G8. India, China, Pakistan, North Korea and Israel are notable exceptions.
The G8 began immediately after the Arab oil embargo of 1973, as a summit of the most powerful six western allied nations. Canada and the USSR were not in the first summit but were invited soon after. When the EU formed, it was also brought in.
Canada is not a strong world influence politically, but is strong economically, industrialized and of course the northern neighbor and close ally of the US. The USSR, and now Russia, may not be considered to be a western ally in the formal sense, but it was brought in for practical reasons and because Russia likewise was affected by the Arab League, a federation of Islamic nations, and OPEC, the organization of oil producing nations, which is predominantly, but not completely Islamic. G8 nations which export oil are not members of OPEC, OPEC being an organization devoted to strengthening the world oomph of less developed countries who have the advantage of oil.
What France and England are saying is that they want to expand the western alliance to include all of the world powers and countries especially favored, for strategic reasons, by the world powers. China is in no way an ally, but its influence and strength has become such that they consider it better to work with China than apart from it.
India tends to be “pro-western”, not Islamic, and is a nuclear power. Its economy does not rank in the level of other G8 nations, but it is geographically very important and has the strength and size to make independent decisions that could affect world policy because of its strategic location.
Mexico might be considered a curious choice in some ways, its economic influence not be especially great, and its military influence being even less. However, it is an oil producing nation and a member of OPEC, and is aligned with the western powers over the Islamic/communist block of OPEC, and is a powerful Latin American nation. The Latin American nations, meaning South and Central America and much of the Caribbean, have long been a battleground of global politics, but increasingly so with the alliance of Venezuela and Iran, and the ever increasing power and wealth of the drug and smuggling trades in Latin American countries.
South Africa, with its strong European population and ties, is also a favored nation, in great part because it is in Africa, where the Islamic vs. West struggle is very active, is aligned with the Western powers and is relatively stable. It also has oil, diamonds and other mineral resources. It is not predominantly Islamic and is not likely to become so in the near future. It is one of the richer of the African nations, but its economy, like India or Mexico, ranks in the middle world wide.
South Africa also has the unique status of being a non-nuclear nuclear nation. South Africa did develop nuclear weapons, but disassembled its arsenal and signed the nuclear non-proliferation treaty. Of course, an arsenal that was disassembled can be reassembled, but it evidently decided that nuclear weapons would be more of a drawback than an advantage. South Africa is not particularly under threat from other nations with nuclear weapons because of its location and position in the world.
Israel is never discussed as a possible addition to the current G8, although its credentials make it as likely and addition as India, Mexico or South Africa, and in some ways it has more reason to be considered. Israel of course has a unique status in the world and has let itself come under the thumb of the western powers to such an extent that its input is considered to be of little value in spite of its economic strength, strategic geographic position, alliance with Western powers and nuclear capabilities. The Western powers are evidently planning to dismantle Israel with its consent, and it is used maintained mainly as a tool, providing a self sustaining base for operations and intelligence in the Mideast.
This situation is regrettable for Israel and unnecessary, but it is the path the successive governments of Israel have followed, bowing to western pressures and ceding its sovereignty to international considerations.
