ABSTRACT
Reconstructing the international financial system for a new era of intensifying globalisation had first been identified as a priority task, well before the 1997-1999 crisis erupted, at the conclusion of the 1994 Group of Seven (G7) Summit in Naples. An apparently ascendant America, rendered vulnerable alongside the other G7 members by intensifying globalisation, required collective G7 action through mutual adjustment on zero-sum issues and convergent and common contributions in the larger positive-sum domain. The Asian financial crisis, which erupted in Thailand in July 1997 only a few weeks after the Denver Summit, at first appeared ready to unleash the familiar dynamic of American hegemonic leadership. The decade-long rise of the United States, in the wake of the Cold War's end and a globalising world, as the world's only "superpower", also offered a model for reconstruction, inspiring President Clinton, at the 1997 Denver Summit, to recommend to his G7 partners and the world that they adopt the American way.
