JIIA Strategic Comments (2025-02)
Papers in the "JIIA Strategic Commentary Series" are prepared mainly by JIIA research fellows to provide commentary and policy-oriented analyses on significant international affairs issues in a readily comprehensible and timely manner.

This year marks the 50th anniversary since the first summit of the industrialized nations (hereinafter "the Summit") was held in Rambouillet, France, in 1975. In this anniversary year Donald Trump was inaugurated for his second term as President of the United States. He recently shocked the world by globally broadcasting the heated exchange with his Ukrainian counterpart President Volodymyr Zelensky at the Oval Office on February 28 over the terms of a ceasefire for the war in Ukraine. The fears that the G7, a conveyor of the liberal camp's common understandings at the highest level, would be unable to issue a strong message regarding the invasion of Ukraine, which is a clear violation of the UN Charter, have become a reality. President Trump's advocacy for a revival of the G8 with Russia's re-admission¹ is also a concern. Will the G7 follow the UN Security Council into dysfunction? On February 21, Ian Bremmer, the head of Eurasia Group, posted on X even before the US-Ukraine summit that "the odds of the g7 not happening this year are going up every day".

Let us put aside for the moment whether the G7 Summit will be held this year. The writer is of the view that the significance of "inviting a certain country to the Summit" has not been well examined even among the Summiteers. As a result, the idea of expanding the G7 per Trump's suggestion is being discussed with no premise on which to pursue dispassionate discussions. This article is an attempt to explain these points with some references to the Summit history.

Russia as a Summit Participant (1991-2014)

As is well known, the Summit began in 1975, when the leaders of France, the United States, the United Kingdom, West Germany, Japan and Italy gathered at the Château de Rambouillet, a castle on the outskirts of Paris, at the invitation of France to discuss the first oil crisis triggered by the Yom Kippur War. The United States, which became the chair country the following year, insisted that Canada participate, and its admission brought the number of participating countries to seven, hence the G7. After the end of the Cold War and Russia's formal admission to the group, it became the G8, reverting to the G7 following Russia's invasion of Crimea in 2014.

The Summit in fact has two facets: as a "conference" where the leaders of the advanced nations generally meet once a year, and as an "institution" where the Chair (which rotates annually among the member nations) engages in detailed administrative coordination to produce a consensus document or prepares a statement in an emergency situation. As of 1975, the Summit only had the feature of a "conference". However, the Summit as an "institution" grew as Sherpas, or personal representatives appointed by the G7 leaders, led their respective diplomatic and financial policy teams to develop agreements of behalf of their political masters in the leadup to the Summit itself. The teams led by Sherpas also implement the agreements formulated through various working groups, underpinning the Summit as an institution. Today, participating in the Summit as a member rather than simply as an invitee means that Sherpas and other government officials from the member country will take part in the preparatory process that starts half a year or so prior to the Summit.

Since Canada joined the group in 1976, the only country to be additionally admitted to this "institution" is Russia (the European Commission has participated since 1979). However, Russia did not participate in the Summit as a full member of this "institution" from the beginning:

• In 1991, the United Kingdom, the Chair, invited Mikhail Gorbachev, the President of the Soviet Union, to the London Summit outside the summit schedule.

• In 1994, Russia participated only in the session discussing international political issues at the Naples Summit (G7+1).

• At the 1997 Denver Summit, Russia participated in all sessions except for those on the global economy and finance. From 1998 onwards, the Summit was named the "G8 Summit" at the initiative of the UK (Prime Minister Tony Blair), which hosted the Birmingham Summit that year.

• In 2003, Russia participated in all agenda meetings at the Evian Summit, which was chaired by France.

• In 2014, following Russia's annexation of Crimea, the other member countries refused to attend the Summit, which was scheduled to be held in Sochi that year. The institution has since then reverted to the G7.

The composition of the Summit is not determined by documents or international agreements, and there is no legal process that must be followed to participate in the Summit. It is possible for a Chair to invite any given country to the Summit as a guest at its own initiative. However, when it comes to "incorporating" a country into the Summit as an institution, as in the case of Russia after the Cold War, the prospective member is likely to be accepted only after all members agree to the invitation and after an observation period of several years during which a common view is formed in favor of allowing the country in question to participate in discussions on a permanent basis, for even if a G7 member serving as the Chair wanted to treat a particular country as an official member, there is no guarantee that such treatment will be accorded in successive years if the other member countries do not agree.

The Heiligendamm Dialogue Process (2007-2009)

On the other hand, there is an example of a country serving as Chair that insisted particular countries continue to be invited to the Summit due to their importance, and even bound subsequent Chair countries to this policy. At the 2007 Heiligendamm Summit, German Chancellor Angela Merkel invited the leaders of five emerging economies - Brazil, India, China, Mexico and South Africa - and announced that the G7 would launch a policy dialogue with these five countries (the Outreach Five, or O5) on four areas, including investment and development cooperation. This was named the Heiligendamm Dialogue Process (HDP). ²

The effect of the HDP on the Summit membership can be summarized as follows. First, the invitations extended to the O5 leaders by Japan and Italy as Chairs to the Hokkaido Toyako Summit in 2008 and the L'Aquila Summit in 2009 respectively became something of a "fait accompli". In fact, both Japan and Italy invited the O5 leaders to their respective Summits and had them participate in several sessions³. Second, the HDP not only invited the O5 leaders to the "Summit as a conference" but also involved the O5 secretariats in the "Summit as an institution", attempting to utilize the O5's power to resolve the immediate issues facing the international economy by having the 13 countries take part in drafting some of the communiqués. As a result of the continued and substantive involvement of the governments of emerging economies, including their administrative staff, in the Summit discussions, the G8 appeared to be on the verge of expanding its membership for the first time since Russia joined. Most notably, French President Nicolas Sarkozy gave a speech in August 2007 after the Heiligendamm Summit to ambassadors from various countries, clearly telling them that the G8 needed to go through a gentle transformation and that he hoped to "transform the G8 into the G13" by adding the O5⁴.

A Dual Track: G7/8 and G20 Summits (2008-)

The Summit has not since expanded its membership but it exists today as the G7 Summit by expelling Russia, giving it a form more aligned with Western norms and values. The main reason for this is the birth of the G20 Summit in 2008. The global financial crisis occurred in the autumn of 2008, after the Hokkaido Toyako Summit had ended and at a time when the aforementioned idea of expanding to a G13 structure was still taken seriously. There was a growing sense that an emergency summit meeting should be held to issue a strong message regarding the global economy. The United States took up the role as the Chair for this summit, but opinions varied among the G8 over which countries should participate in the summit. In the end, the US chose neither to create a new framework such as the G13 nor to abandon the G8 as an outdated format, but instead to create a summit framework on top of the existing G20, which had been created as a gathering of 20 finance ministers and central bank governors in response to the Asian currency crisis, and to preserve the G8 framework intact.

This point is extremely important in understanding the path that led to the G7 continuing to exist to this day. With the creation of the G20 Summit, the G13 proposal suddenly meant an exclusion of Australia, Indonesia, Turkey, Saudi Arabia, Argentina and South Korea from the G20 arena. It became increasingly difficult for pro-G13 leaders to advocate a proposal that would potentially turn these regional powers against them. In addition, it gradually became clear over the course of several Summits that the format of more than 20 people sitting at a round table tended to diffuse discussions and produce vague statements as the members find little common ground among themselves. The fact that countries like China have stated that they will not discuss political issues at G20 Summits⁵ also called into question the usefulness of this framework.

Nevertheless, the idea of expanding the G8 did not completely die out even after the inauguration of the G20 Summit. At the press conference following the 2009 G8 L'Aquila Summit, President Sarkozy expressed his desire to expand the G8, stressing the need to expand the group to a G14 (the G8 plus the O5 and Egypt)⁶. However, as a result of Russia's annexation of Crimea in 2014, the G7 leaders announced that they would boycott the G8 Summit to be held in Sochi that year; hence the Summit reverted to its previous G7 format, where it remains today. The attempt to use a Summit membership to draw post-Cold War Russia into the liberal camp thus failed⁷.

The G7 as an Institution Must Be Preserved

The G7 Summit's reputation as "the steering committee of the liberal world" (former US presidential aide Jake Sullivan) has grown considerably since Russia's invasion of Ukraine in 2022. One reason for this is that the G20 Summit, which includes Russia and countries that took a neutral stance on the war such as India, Brazil and South Africa, was unable to issue a strong message condemning Russia as an aggressor. There were also some in the Western media who regarded the G7 without Russia "a more useful and focused grouping to deal with an era of renewed superpower rivalry⁸." What awaited the renewed G7, though, was President Trump's statement that he would rather make Russia a member again and restore the G8. There is no way that Canada as this year's G7 Chair will invite Russia under the circumstances. What is more, President Putin has an arrest warrant issued against him by the International Criminal Court (ICC), so he will not be traveling to Canada, a signatory to the ICC. Russian officials have also stated that they have no intention of returning to the G8 in response to Trump's statement⁹. As such, the G7 Summit as an institution will likely be maintained for the time being.

As mentioned above, the G7 Summit as we know it today could have been expanded to G13 at the initiative of some leaders, but the decision was ultimately made to keep the G7 coexistent with the G20. Now that the United States is showing its eagerness to step down from the leadership role of the liberal camp, Japan and other G7 members should first focus on preserving the G7 as an institution that is an international public good. Accordingly, any discussion of expanding the group's membership should be frozen during Trump's presidency, and efforts should be made to maintain the convening power inherent in the G7 mechanisms. In this regard, Japan should join forces with Italy, which has traditionally been opposed to expanding the G7, and from time to time advise President Trump on the importance of policy coordination through the G7 and the need to preserve the G7 framework. It is a stroke of luck that both Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni and Japanese Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba have relatively good relations with President Trump.

Even so, the policies of the Trump administration since it came to power make disagreements and friction within the G7 inevitable. Another cause for concern is the fact that several members of Trump's cabinet did not show up at this year's G20 ministerial meetings¹⁰. It is doubtful whether President Trump, who has announced high tariffs against neighboring Canada, this year's G7 Chair, will attend the leaders' meeting organized by Ottawa.

Nonetheless, it is extremely important to retain a forum where decent discussions can be expected and a unified statement can be issued representing the will of the liberal world until such time the United States demonstrates its resilience. The Summit framework has no binding international agreements to keep the institution running. For this reason, with doubts now being cast on the unity of the G7 itself, the current members should look ahead and make even greater efforts to preserve this forum for policy coordination among leaders of the liberal camp who share the same aspirations.

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