The Group of 20 leaders' summit on Thursday will cement the status of big developing nations such as China, India and Brazil as full members of what is emerging as the board of directors of the global economy.

But the G-20, a decade-old forum of industrialized and developing nations, has plenty of potential rivals, including a proposed new board for the International Monetary Fund. It's also too early to count out the longstanding rich countries' club called the Group of Seven.

The world has had G-overload for decades. There's the G-2, with China and the U.S.; the G-5, composed of the U.S., the U.K., France, Germany and Japan; the G-7, which is the G-5 plus Canada and Italy; the G-77, a gaggle of developing countries; and others. The basic idea has remained the same: Global problems -- from currency misalignments to trade negotiations to crisis-fighting -- require a bunch of countries to work together.

The G-20 has come to the forefront during the global recession, as leaders sought a coordinated response to prevent nations from pursuing policies that could disadvantage rivals. Under pressure from Europe to hold a leaders' summit last fall, then-U.S. President George W. Bush chose the G-20. U.K. Prime Minister Gordon Brown made the same choice for Thursday's follow-up meeting.

The G-20's heightened stature has diminished the G-7, whose finance ministers meet several times a year. When the G-7 leaders get together annually, the group adds Russia and morphs into the G-8. In recent years, the G-8 has also invited India, China and other big emerging markets to its sessions.

Fred Bergsten, director of the Peterson Institute for International Economics, a Washington think tank, says he expects the G-7 will effectively become a rich-country caucus for the G-20. The next G-8 leaders' meeting, in July, is to take place at a onetime submarine base in the Mediterranean, to make it easier for the Italian hosts to handle security.

'They put the G-8 on an uninhabited rock,' Mr. Bergsten says. 'That's symbolic of what's happening to the G-8.'

It's too early to dismiss the G-7 or G-8 as history. Probably the most significant international agreement since the global crisis began was forged at a G-7 session in Washington on Oct. 10, 2008, when the members' finance ministers pledged that they would prevent 'systemically important financial institutions' from going broke. That pledge was ratified by the IMF's 185 member nations the next day and by G-20 leaders in November.

The U.S. pushed to form the G-20 after the Asian financial crisis of 1997-98, though today the grouping is sometimes viewed as a challenge to American power. Two G-20 founders are top U.S. officials today, as they were then: White House chief economic adviser Lawrence Summers and Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner. Their goal was to create a global forum, and to minimize the power of smaller European countries, which have a disproportionately large say at the IMF.

The G-20 didn't accomplish much other than helping coordinate the fight against tax evasion and terrorist financing.The G-20 suffers from its numbers -- more members means more formal statements and less give-and-take -- and from the lack of a permanent staff to implement plans. Prime Minister Brown is skeptical of the idea of a staff, as are others, fearing the creation of yet another international bureaucracy.

The European Union is one of the G-20's members. And more than 20 nations are attending the meeting in London, including Spain and the Netherlands, which aren't members.

South African Finance Minister Trevor Manuel has proposed a different international board, which would have wider representation than the G-20 and may yet become its rival. His Council of Ministers would replace the current board of 24 that oversees the IMF and has less power. The new council would consist of about 20 finance ministers. 'You would have universal legitimacy,' says Kemal Dervis, until recently the head of the United Nations Development Program.

G20正在兴起成为全球经济的董事会，周四的G20峰会将巩固中国、印度和巴西等发展中大国作为其正式成员的地位。

美国总统奥巴马抵达伦敦但是，由工业化国家和发展中国家成立10年之久的G20却面临很多潜在的对手，包括国际货币基金组织(IMF)拟议中的新理事会。而且将长期的富国俱乐部七国集团排除在外也为时过早。

几十年来，世界上充斥着各种各样的G打头的组织：中国和美国组成的G2；美、英、法、德、日组成的G5；加拿大和意大利加上G5组成的G7；还有由众多发展中国家组成的G-77，以及其它许多类似组织。基本的想法都是一样的：即诸如汇率失当、贸易谈判和应对危机这类全球性问题需要许多国家的共同努力。

在全球经济陷入衰退之际，G20已站到了最前沿，因为领导人希望作出协调一致的反应，以防止一个国家所推行的政策让其他国家陷入不利地位。去年秋季在欧洲要求举办领导人峰会的压力下，当时的美国总统布什选择了G20。英国首相布朗也对周四举行的这次后续会议做出了同样的选择。

G20地位的提高让财政部长一年会面几次的G7相形见绌。当G7领导人举行年度会议时，这个集团加入了俄罗斯，演变成了G8。近年来，G8也一直在邀请印度、中国和其它新兴市场大国参加会议。

华盛顿智库彼得森世界经济研究所(Peterson Institute for International Economics)主任伯格斯坦(Fred Bergsten)说，他预计G7实际上将成为G20内的富国核心层。下一次G8领导人会议将于7月份在地中海地区一个老的潜艇基地举行，以方便主办国意大利解决安全问题。

伯格斯坦说，他们将G8安排到了杳无人迹的的地方，这也是G8目前所面临情况的写照。

G7或G8成为历史还为时过早。也许全球金融危机开始以来最重要的国际协议就是2008年10月10日在华盛顿的G7会议上达成的，当时成员国的财政部长承诺将防止"具有系统重要性的金融机构"倒闭。这一承诺次日得到了国际货币基金组织185个成员国的批准，并于11月份得到了G20领导人的批准。

美国在1997至1998年的亚洲金融危机之后推动建立了G20，不过现在看来这个组织的构成有时似乎是挑战了美国的地位。两名开创G20的美国高级官员今天仍然是高级官员，他们分别是白宫首席经济顾问萨默斯(Lawrence Summers)和财政部长盖特纳(Timothy Geithner)。他们的目标是建立一个全球论坛，并将尽量减少欧洲小国的权力。这些国家在国际货币基金组织中的话语权相对于它们的实力来说过大。

除了帮助协调打击逃税和恐怖主义融资以外，G20并没有太大的作为。G20受累于数量──更多的成员国意味着更多的表态和更少的行动──和缺乏常设人员实施具体计划。布朗首相等人对常设人员的想法表示怀疑，担心这会成为另一个国际官僚机构。

欧盟也是G20的成员之一。参加伦敦会议的国家不止20个，其中包括不是成员国的西班牙和荷兰。

南非财政部长曼纽尔(Trevor Manuel)提出设立一个不同的国际委员会，将比G20具有更广泛的代表权，也可能成为其竞争对手。他提议的部长理事会将取代目前由24名执行理事组成的IMF理事会，后者监督国际货币基金组织的运行，但是权力较小。新的理事会将包括大约20名财政部长。不久前还担任联合国开发计划署署长的德尔维什(Kemal Dervis)说，你会拥有普遍的合法性。
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