While Japan envisions its role as a leading promoter of rules-based liberal international order, the G20 tested Japan’s leadership in championing the cause of trade liberalisation and resisting protectionism.
The issue at stake is the US upholding and expanding its role as the key shaper of geopolitics in Northeast Asia, and China unwilling to be sidelined by the United States.
President Bush will host the first ever financial summit of the G-20 on November 15, 2008 in Washington to discuss the current global financial crisis which threatens the economic and political stability through out the world. The crisis comes on the heels of an economic crisis in the global economy in the first half of 2008 which was characterised by a record level of oil prices, global food shortages, high inflation and rising inflation in most countries.
