It's a common belief that the annual G-7 or G-8 summits accomplish little more than allowing the leaders of the industrialized world to get together and make a show of global unity. Consequently, the only thing you can count on in the post-summit analyses is that they will dwell on what wasn't discussed, which, in the case of the recent Okinawa wing-ding, was the promise made at last year's summit to forgive Third World debt.

That's what the foreign media talked about. The Japanese media were more interested in the summit-as-festival, which is understandable considering how much the thing cost (the government denies the oft-reported 80 billion yen price tag, but in any event, it was considerably more expensive than past summits) and the fact that it was held where it was held. The Japanese media at times gave the impression that the summit would force the United States and, by extension, the world to acknowledge the issue of U.S. military presence in Okinawa, despite the fact that it had no place on the agenda.

Some local commentators claimed that President Bill Clinton was actually trying to avoid coming to the summit so as not to be put into the position of having to talk about the recent molestation of a teenage girl by a drunken marine. Though it's true that Clinton didn't address the alleged crime directly, he did acknowledge in a roundabout way that the Okinawans bear a disproportionate burden of Japan's support for the U.S. Far East troops.