Going it alone

Campbell Clark reports that the Cons' attack on global financial regulation has managed to make "screw you, we've got ours" into the leading theme going into the G8 and G20 summits:

(European states) have been the most resistant to Canada’s proposal for common interim deficit targets, according to officials from several G20 countries. In meetings of G20 sherpas, they say they’ll deal with deficit targets inside Europe. Other participants say it’s a response to Canada’s bank-tax opposition. “The Europeans quite easily say, ‘Just like you said on the [bank tax] issue, you can do that if you want, but we don’t need to,’ ” one official from a G20 country said.
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The pattern could set a precedent. Many in the G20 want China to spend more and increase the value of its currency. A low currency helps China export more and import less. The United States pressed the issue at a meeting of G20 officials in Calgary two weeks ago.

But China doesn’t want to be the summit’s focus, and doesn’t want to shift its currency policy under international pressure. The G20 set up a process for issues such as China’s currency values, and it’s supposed to come in two phases: The IMF submits reports on economic forecasts and regional issues for G20 leaders to review in June, and a second phase will deal with national policy such as currency rates.

China is against the whole second phase. And they may be able to find lots of precedents for going their own way.

Now, one might be tempted to ask whether this is really what the Cons intended to provoke. But the answer is probably that they're perfectly happy undercutting agreements on other issues as long as it means they've used their ability to stonewall global action to rein in corporate excesses to the greatest possible effect.