Summit success reflects a different global landscape

livia

【标题】Summit success reflects a different global landscape
【原文链接】http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/b0b0c13c-1fb0-11de-a1df-00144feabdc0.html?nclick_check=19 U) @% D4 G! Z: R: P) R
【时间或作者】By Philip Stephens Published: April 2 2009 19:12 |
【图片+注释】
【正文】

The London summit was not, after all, a flop. More than that, the gathering of 20-something world leaders was a substantial success. It is true that, for all his diligent diplomacy, Britain’s Gordon Brown could not claim to have saved the planet. Yet historians will record the summit as the moment when a world in the throes of economic and geopolitical upheaval took a first, hard look in the mirror.
Those who view politics as an event rather than a process will have been disappointed. So also will those expecting, or pretending to expect, that the summit would fix the global economy. The world is too complex for the instant gratification demanded by 24-hour rolling news channels.
The final communiqué was replete with the linguistic fudges that speak to a difference of diagnosis and remedy for the world’s economic ills. The grandstanding of France’s Nicolas Sarkozy and the no-nonsense fiscal conservatism of Germany’s Angela Merkel handed ammunition to anyone in search of discord.
To have expected anything other than this of the summit, however, was to misunderstand the nature of politics and the scale of the challenge. Mrs Merkel was stating the obvious when she said each of the leaders was determined to defend his or her own national interest. It was ever thus.
The summiteers had their own historical and cultural reference points. Many of the differences defied the obvious boundaries between west and east, between old and rising powers.
Thus, in considering measures to promote recovery, Germany recalls the ruinous consequences of the inflation of the Weimar Republic. The US looks back to the same era, but uppermost in President Barack Obama’s mind is the human misery of the Great Depression.
These gatherings cannot erase such differences. The purpose is to align, as far as possible, national and mutual interests. In hauling the leaders some way in this direction, Mr Brown is due his plaudits.
I cannot claim an inside track on the course of the international economy. But for the short term everyone agrees things will be bad – not least in the world’s poorest economies. On the other hand, I am unpersuaded by the prophets of doom who think we are rushing headlong towards economic Armageddon.
The banking system still needs to be fixed. As Dominique Strauss-Kahn, managing director of the International Monetary Fund, has warned, many banks are still hiding toxic assets. The Fund is warning, too, of a potential financial crisis in eastern and central Europe. The collapse in world trade is a measure of how quickly bad news ricochets around the global system.
Measured by what was “brand new”, the summit’s achievements were modest. Yet the proper gauge of success was how far the leaders had travelled during the past few months. The answer is quite a distance.
Mr Strauss-Kahn observed that in spite of recent spats the leading economies had, by and large, met the Fund’s call for a fiscal boost of 2 per cent of global output. Alongside it, the world has seen an unprecedented monetary stimulus, with interest rates as close as it matters to zero. More stimulus may be needed, but for now that argument is an artificial one.
The communiqué also includes a huge injection of funds to increase the firepower of the international financial institutions so that they can prop up emerging economies and support trade. The numbers here were higher than even some optimists had hoped for. I leave to the accountants an assessment of the statements on bank regulation and tax havens. Something on those issues needed to be done, if only for politics’ sake. But a clampdown on bank accounts in Liechtenstein is not the most urgent task.
Those who dismiss the summit have to consider how much of the convergence would have occurred without the focus of this week’s meeting. Not much, I suspect.
The summit’s deeper significance, though, lay in its unspoken recognition of the remaking of the geopolitical landscape. Not so long ago, this would have been a gathering of the Group of Eight rich nations, perhaps with cameo roles for China, India and a few others. Now, Hu Jintao, Manmohan Singh and the rest take their places as of right. The world, in other words, is at last catching a true reflection of itself.
Mr Obama has been more alert than most to this shift. Europe speaks the language of inclusiveness but is genuinely fearful of giving ground to the rising powers. Mr Sarkozy’s petulance is more a cry of pain than a measure of confidence.
By contrast, the US president has grasped that if America is to hold on to its pre-eminent role in the world it will be within a system in which others have a stake. Mr Obama shows wisdom beyond his years in realising that to understand the extent of US power – and it is still unrivalled – a president must also map its limits.
The road ahead will be bumpy. Whatever Mr Obama’s intentions it will be hard for the US to break the unilateralist habit, not least because many of those who demand that Washington share power also expect it to pick up the tab for global security. The hesitation of many of the old powers to cede power is matched by the reluctance of the rising nations to assume the burdens. China wants recognition of its great power status through a bigger say in international institutions. But while this week saw Beijing in more assertive mood, it is still minded more to say what it dislikes than to offer its own answers. India is even less inclined to accept that prestige carries responsibilities.
The so-called Group of 20 – I counted 29 delegation heads round the dining table in 10 Downing Street – is a cumbersome grouping. Its reach gives it legitimacy, but at the price of operational efficiency. A smaller grouping – say, of 15 – might yet be a better answer.
Whatever the imperfections, the process promises to embed the habit of multilateralism in a multipolar world. History reminds us that big shifts in global power, such as we are witnessing, often end in war as rising states challenge the status quo. A few arguments about tax havens or bank regulation are a small price to pay for a peaceful transition.
Managing the Sino-American relationship during the next decade will require extraordinary statesmanship on both sides. Europe still has to find a path out of its present state of denial. The rising nations will not easily shed their suspicions of the west. So, yes, there will be fissures and fractures. It will take more than a summit or three to conjure a new global order. But looking hard in the mirror is as good a place as any for the leaders to start.
philip.stephens@ft.com
More columns at www.ft.com/philipstephens


Copyright The Financial Times Limited 2009