Okinawa ready to welcome 'rich states' club'

By Simon Tisdall

LONDON: The Group of Eight (G-8) summit meeting that begins on the Japanese island of Okinawa on Friday is already a big disappointment to local businessmen.

The thousands of government officials, security men, and journalists who will accompany the leaders of the United States, Japan, Germany, Britain, France, Canada, Italy and Russia have squeezed out the high-spending tourists and holiday-makers upon whom Okinawa depends for most of its income.

While the tourists stay away this weekend, 20,000 police have been drafted in to ensure there is no trouble. Even the U.S. marines from a base close to the host city of Nago are under curfew, in part because of a series of ugly incidents involving local people.

The result is that the Japanese government's crafty plan to boost Okinawa's economy, hard hit during the recent recession, by holding the G-8 meeting there, may yet backfire.

But Japan's Prime Minister, Yoshiro Mori, will doubtless be satisfied if that is the only problem he has to face. The recently-installed Mori needs some positive results to strengthen his position at home and abroad. There is just a whiff of desperation about the plaintive slogan on show in Nago that reads: "Let's have a successful summit".

Mori's intention is to make information technology (IT) the centerpiece of the summit's agenda. The idea is that the G-8 leaders will show the way in promoting IT as a driving force in the global economy and a tool to reduce the gap between rich and poor countries.

This is an echo of the EU's "dot.com" summit in Lisbon last spring. But Mori is also playing to a domestic audience. He is said to be concerned that when it comes to IT, Japanese business is falling behind American and European competitors.

Whether Mori gets his way depends on the priorities of the other G-8 members, all of whom come to the summit with their own agendas.

The United States, for example, is embroiled in a row over Japanese domestic telecoms charges, which it wants cut by almost 50 percent. It is also resisting Japan's efforts to drastically reduce the estimated US$4.2 billion it pays annually towards the upkeep of U.S. military bases, a payment known as "host nation support". Officials will hope to resolve, or put to one side, these and other contentious issues before President Bill Clinton shows up in Nago.

Russia's President Vladimir Putin, on the other hand, will want a different summit focus: himself. He is making his G-8 debut and has already declared his ambition to have Russia treated as an equal, in contrast to the "begging bowl" approach of his predecessor, Boris Yeltsin.

Putin, fresh from visits to China and North Korea, is also expected to raise Russia's strong opposition to America's plans for a national missile defense (NMD) system when he sees Clinton.

China, which suspects the G-8 of plotting to supplant the UN Security Council as the leading international forum, will not be present in Okinawa. But it strongly backs Putin on NMD.

On the other hand, other G-8 members can be expected to tackle Russia over its reputation as a center for international money- laundering. Any suggestion, meanwhile, that some or all of Moscow's $42 billion overseas debt will be written off has been quashed in advance by Germany's Chancellor, Gerhard Schroder.

"Russia is a world power ... It has the resources to cope self-sufficiently with its financial obligations," Schroder said bluntly this week. Whether this is the sort of equal treatment Putin was hoping for is doubtful.

Other countries, like France, are likely to promote a planned initiative to combat Aids and other infectious disease epidemics that disproportionately affect developing countries. The summit is expected to launch a fund to bolster this fight in the presence of the especially-invited leaders of South Africa, Nigeria, Thailand and Algeria.

Britain, which has led attempts to reduce Third World debt, may concentrate on this issue again (although developing IT is a favorite theme of Prime Minister Tony Blair). Alternatively, it may want to avoid the subject of debt relief altogether. Last year's G-8 summit proposed a $100 billion millennium package to alleviate the debt of the world's poorest nations but so far very little has been done in practice.

Therein lies the central problem with G-8 summits. They raise great expectations, but can fail to deliver concrete results. They often turn into a series of bilateral meetings between the various participants, followed by bland communiques constructed around compromises, diplomatic fudges, and grandiose pledges that are swiftly forgotten.

Less favored nations and non-governmental organizations have thus come to view the G-8, with some justice, as a rich countries' talking shop and gentlemen's club.

Activists who want, for example, the Okinawa summit to take radical actions like declaring a moratorium on genetically- modified food production, or moving decisively to halt the destruction of coral reefs by global warming, are likely on past performance to be sorely disappointed.

However, it isn't likely large groups grassroots campaigners will be present in large numbers to kick up a fuss. Okinawa is a remote and expensive place to get to. Which, of course, is another reason why the Japanese chose it in the first place.

-- Observer News Service