The G20 seating plan: Never mind the stimulus, who sat next to the president?

[CHIMO]

It was, observers can agree, the only real question of import in the run-up to last night's summit dinner. Some might have concerned themselves with whether Russia and the US would agree a reduction in nuclear weapons, or how the Chinese premier, Hu Jintao, and his American counterpart, Barack Obama, would hit it off in their first face-to-face meeting, but experienced diplomats know those are not the encounters that matter. What really counts is who sits next to whom at dinner.

By that measure, the seating plan for last night's banquet at Downing Street for the G20 leaders represented a taut little gavotte of diplomatic musical chairs, with every request for the salt representing a lavish favour or small slight with potentially cataclysmic consequences for international relations.

Certainly there were some surprises. As host of the event, Gordon Brown sat at the centre of one side of the long banqueting table, with the coveted spot on his right-hand side occupied by Hu, allowing intense discussion of the perils of protectionism over the entrees.

Exiled to social Siberia at the ends of the table were those guests who were not world leaders, the leaders of the World Bank, IMF and WTO, with the prime ministers of Canada and Australia urged to do the decent family thing next to them. Similarly shunned, and one suspects not terribly surprised, was the Czech president, Mirek Topolanek, who had described the US-proposed global rescue package as the "road to hell".
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2009/apr/02/g20-seating-plan