The big news at this week’s G-8 summit in Italy has nothing to do with the global economic crisis or greenhouse gas emissions or what to do about Iran. No, all the talk is about the last minute withdrawal of China’s President Hu Jintao who abruptly left the proceedings yesterday to return to China to deal with the deadly clashes that broke out this week in the province of Xinjiang.
Now China isn’t even one of the G-8 nations (those would be the U.S., Russia, Japan, France, United Kingdom, Germany, Italy and Canada) and was only invited to participate in second day discussions, yet Hu’s withdrawal immediately sent major ripples throughout the summit and diminished the perceived significance of the event.
