By Feng Yujing, Ban Wei

BERLIN, June 7 -- As this year's G7 summit kicked off on Sunday at Schloss Elmau in the idyllic Bavarian valley, what confront leaders of the seven industrialized countries are not only tens of thousands of demonstrators, but also a daunting task of repositioning the "club of the rich" in a fast-changing world and retaining its influence.

"Is G7 still relevant?" is the question often asked, even by the Western intelligentsia.

The group of Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, Britain and the U.S. used to play the role of trend-setter in the world, especially in global economic governance.

But due to collective rise of emerging countries and the resulting global power shifts, G7 is losing the ability to shape the world and solve its problems, said Gu Xuewu, Director of Center for Global Studies of Bonn University.

"The status loss has led to anxiety. But the more anxious they are, the more they want to keep united. Therefore, I believe the decline in influence will not lead to G7's disappearance. On the contrary, G7 will continue to exist and try to revive itself, " Gu said.

Wang Yizhou, Vice Dean of the School of International Studies of Peking University said that the G7 summit is set to "do some soul searching and seek a restart."

"The summit would analyse its 40 years of experience and current world political and economic situation. And particularly, there will be some rethinking about how to keep the competitive edge of the West in face of rising competition from emerging countries," he said.

Meanwhile, Liu Jiangyong, Vice Director of the Institute of Contemporary International Relations at Qinghua University, said the G7's influence on international affairs would depend on how it could play an active role in promoting global sustainable security and development as well as peaceful cooperation in order to achieve a win-win situation.

As for G7's relations with Russia, which was suspended from the Group of Eight (G8) last year after the outbreak of the Ukrainian crisis, Gu Xuewu believes that Russia will not be invited back to the G7 anytime soon.

In fact the G7 nations also have difference policies and interests concerning Russia, Gu said.

"While the main concern of Germany and France is how to cool down the Ukrainian crisis, the U.S. want to deprive Russia of its predominant influence upon neighboring countries, even at the expense of an escalation of the crisis," he said.

"Except some rhetorics, I do not expect a breakthrough on policy towards Russia at the G7 summit," he added.

Ruan Zongze, Vice President of China Institute of International Studies, believes that Russia won't return to the G7.

"Because G7's value has shrunk, it would not bring much for Russia to return," he said.

Moreover, the relations between Russia and the West is hard to improve in face of continuing sanctions, Ruan said, adding that Russia would put more attention to dialogue mechanisms such as the G20, BRICS and the Shanghai Cooperation Organization.

As for the concern in the West of a united front between Russia and China, the host of next year's G20 summit, Ruan said that there are more cooperation between China and Western nations than differences in global governance.

"China seeks to reform the existing global governance mechanisms, to call for more attention to the demands of emerging markets and to enhance their right to have a say," he said.

The G20 summit next year in China will be critical for the more representing group to transform itself from a crisis-tackling mechanism to a long-term mechanism of global economic governance, Ruan said.

Gu Xuewu noted that cooperation between Russia and China is aimed at optimizing their own interests rather than to confront the interests of the West.

He said that the G7 nations and China have more common interests than disputes on global governance.

"Therefore a more coordinated G7 is not a bad thing for the G20 summit of next year," Gu added.