ABSTRACT
This chapter considers the rationale and the forms that such a singular, enhanced association might take and the steps required to forge a closer link in the near future. It reviews the debate over how far and by what formula China should become associated with a G7/8 that expanded in 1998 to embrace Russia as an almost full partner. The chapter explores the part China played in the Asian-turned-global financial crisis of 1997–1999 and in the effort to reconstruct the international financial architecture that came in the wake of that crisis. An important cause of the Obuchi initiative and of the G7/8’s rapidly developing view of China as a worthy associate was the role China played in the response to the global financial crisis of 1997–1999 and in the subsequent task of reforming the international financial system. The chapter concludes by specifying how the G7/8 should best move to associate China with it in the near term.
