Brazil’s president Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva (usually known just as “Lula”) is also in Italy, although Brazil is not one of the countries making up the G8. That’s apparently because national leaders of other big and/or important countries which don’t quite qualify for the G8 are nonetheless often summoned to show up for token appearances as well. In an exclusive interview with Le Monde, though, Lula makes it known that he is not particularly grateful for the invitation: as one might expect, what you could call the “off-G8″ leaders are mainly there, as he puts it, “to have some coffee – the most expensive coffee in the world! – and for photos.”

As much as I might be enamored of that “off-G8″ neologism of mine just above (you know, like “off-Broadway”?), I’m afraid there’s a better, already-existing term we could use for those other countries like Brazil, Mexico, and South Africa, namely the G20, after the somewhat-larger international summit of world leaders that had its first occasion last November in Washington, its second last April in London, and is scheduled to have its third next September in Pittsburgh. And indeed, in this interview Lula essentially calls for scrapping the G8 structure for yearly international summits in favor of the G20: “The G20 is more important than the G8, more representative, therefore closer to the realities of the crisis we are now going through.” He fears that the only reason the world’s richest countries allowed the G20 forum to get started at all was because they felt it was necessary for dealing with the world economic crisis (indeed, the G20′s short history does suggest that). Instead, though, he advocates not only abolition of the G8 but also an expansion of the G20 structure, to the point where it starts to look a bit like the way the European Union functions, in that regular G20 meetings would also be scheduled for officials below the head-of-government level as well, e.g. meetings of G20 finance ministers, of agricultural ministers, etc.

It’s a relatively short interview (just four questions), but Lula is a practiced politician and so manages to get in plugs for his other pet causes as well, like ratification of the Doha world trade round; a general dismantlement of the trade barriers keeping developing countries from selling their agricultural produce to developed countries; and, if governments think ethanol is a valid alternative energy source, then for the use of sugar cane to make it (like they do in Brazil, quite successfully) rather than corn (like they do in the US, quite unsuccessfully so far). He has also come up with an inside-the-G8 insurgent ally to help put additional pressure on that organization; it should come as no surprise that that is French President Nicolas Sarkozy, who together with Lula (as reported in yet another Le Monde article) is calling for the establishment of a world-wide “Alliance for Change” to “devote priority attention to the social dimension of globalization,” i.e. outside of the G8 structure because, according to those leaders, the G8 has shown itself as unwilling ever to address that subject on its own.

                          

Belgium’s La Libre Belgique has a good run-down (Re-start more, regulate better) of the task these leaders face. The lede:

The stakes of the “Twenty,” industrialized and developing countries, are at minimum double. Consolidate the chances of economic recovery and avoid new skidding from the financial markets. The G20 will have to convince in both registers.

As La Libre reporter Pierre-François Lovens notes, Barack Obama himself has gone on record as refusing to be satisfied with leaving London having achieved only “half measures.” Yet as Lovens also writes, “Four hours, maybe five . . . That’s the time – a priori derisory enough in view of the stakes – that the heads of state and of government of the G20 will devote on Thursday, in London, to the multiple dossiers” before them at the summit. Furthermore, the basic outlines of disagreement have not changed: the US wants greater spending on stimulus packages from other governments, especially those in Europe, while for their part the Europeans reject this idea while making it clear that they are after an expanded system of international financial regulation in which “no place, no financial product and no institution can exist anymore without supervision or transparency.”

Making a true success out of this highest-level conclave does seem to be a mission impossible; of course I plan to use this forum in a day or two to survey international opinion as to whether that objective was nonetheless achieved. Meanwhile, the French news magazine L’Express carries a treatment of what might be a vital development heading into the summit: France and China reconcile.

Wait, did I hear you object out there “I didn’t know China and France were arguing in the first place”? Of course they were: China last November even called off a planned summit with the European Union (whose presidency was then held by France) because French president Nicolas Sarkozy would not call off the meeting he had planned for the following month with the Dalai Lama. That Chinese pique persisted into last January, when the country’s premier, Wen Jiabao, did come halfway around the world to do a tour of European capitals, during which he skipped France. (Sino-French relations had started going bad even before all that, back last April when the Beijing Games Olympic torch could barely be carried through the French capital due to all the mass protests, even though strictly speaking that wasn’t the fault of the French authorities.)

That’s all over with now, though. Via a communiqué released simultaneously in Beijing and Paris yesterday (Wednesday) morning – and so really at the very beginning of the gathering-in-London around the G20 summit – both governments announced that they had decided . . .

. . . to hold, at the opportune moment, high-level contacts as well as new sessions of strategic dialogue . . . with a view towards promoting bilateral cooperation within different domains and towards assuring a harmonious and stable development of Franco-Chinese relations.

(That was the version out of Paris, I suspect, since the Beijing version probably mentioned at the end of that sentence “Sino-French relations.”) Plus, Sarkozy and Chinese president Hu Jintao got together in London that same day for a private (although certainly not secret) tête-à-tête, occurring shortly after they happened to find themselves seated next to each other at the dinner for all the assembled heads of state.

So that’s nice, they’ve kissed and made up, but how did this rapprochement come about? Simple: the French have completely dropped any advocacy they once had for the Tibetans. More language from that joint communiqué: “out of respect for the principle of non-interference, France objects to all support for the independence of Tibet, in any form whatsoever.” Surrendering completely to Chinese political desires: yes, that’s no doubt an effective way to get the Chinese back on your side!

The question naturally arises: Why this now? The answer, of course, would seem to have at least something to do with this G20 summit. It’s interesting to speculate the possible impact of such a tighter Paris-Beijing axis on what happens today at the summit and what comes out of it. For example, both governments have been particularly insistent that this convocation yield solid results and not just window dressing. Sarkozy, as is well known, has even held out the possibility of walking out on it if he gets too disatisfied with the course of the procedings; President Hu, coming from the rather more decorous East, has gone nowhere near as far.

                          

Yes, the US first couple (and the rest of their 500-person entourage) fly into London’s Stansted airport (misspelled in the article) sometime tonight, to be then helicoptered promptly to their hotel in London proper. Poosen adds that up to six helicopters will be taking off from Stansted at roughly the same time, each heading to London by a slightly-different route – it’s a helicopter shell-game designed to befuddle any terrorist stationed just outside the airport with an anti-aircraft missile, you see.

Oh, and the “Beast” is already there to serve them. Sorry, this is not some giant, hulking Secret Service agent, maybe sporting steel teeth, but rather the President’s custom-designed Cadillac: seven meters long, armored, built to withstand rocket and chemical attack. It could come in handy – let’s not hope too handy – because by all accounts London is going to be an unadulterated circus on Thursday, trying to run that super-important G20 summit in the middle of a city full of protestors.

The final tidbit Poosen offers up that you may not have the chance to learn about elsewhere concerns the dinner at Nr. 10 Downing Street scheduled this evening for the Obamas, presided over by none other than the Naked Chef himself, Jamie Oliver. Don’t worry, Oliver has agreed to wear clothes this time in honor of the dignity of the occasion – if he is there at all! You see, his wife is about to give birth to their third child, and he has made clear that even the Obamas aren’t enough to keep him from being present for that. But there’s a problem: Oliver isn’t going to be allowed to have any mobile telephone at hand while he’s at Nr. 10 Downing Street – security, you know – so he’s been trying to figure out some other way to get word, if it comes, that he’s needed at the hospital. I guess either Gordon Brown or his residential staff will just have to take the call from a landline.

From the G20 summit, the Obamas’ trip continues on to Strasbourg on Friday (plus a brief excursion across the Rhine to Germany), Prague on Sunday (but sorry, Poosen is wrong here: the president is in Prague on Saturday and Sunday), and then off to Turkey to fulfill Obama’s promise of making an early visit to a Muslim country.