Japan, the only Asian nation in the elite club of eight industrial powers, is pulling out all the stops for the three-day G-8 summit starting Monday at the secluded mountain retreat of Toyako.

With 15 other nations’ leaders also invited, Japan has billed its G-8 summit as the biggest yet and allocated a 31.9 billion yen (US$300 million) budget to put it on, including building a state-of-the-art eco-friendly media center.

In the months before the G-8, Japan pledged to double its aid to Africa, offered 250 million dollars in emergency aid to address the global food crisis and drafted plans to force industry to cut emissions blamed for global warming.

The issues are all set to be high on the agenda for the summit, which includes U.S. President George W. Bush and the leaders of Britain, Canada, France, Germany, Italy and Russia.

“I think Japan still takes the G-8 a bit more seriously than everyone else,” said Robert Dujarric, director of the Institute of Contemporary Japanese Studies at Temple University’s Tokyo campus.

“This is an idea that goes back in Japan to the 19th century, the notion that they have become a country of the first rank,” he said. “They want to be seen as the only respectable Asian country.”

The summit comes one month before the Beijing Olympics, which China hoped would showcase the country’s rising clout, but which has become a lightning rod for foreign criticism over China’s human rights record, particularly in Tibet.

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