The White House announced on Monday that Russia's participation in the G8 was suspended. The decision made after US President Barack Obama's talks with other Western leaders was interpreted as having kicked Russia out of the group. Russia joining the group in the 1990s was a "reward" that the West granted to Moscow for its democratization efforts. Now the G8 has shrunk to G7 again, leaving the relationship between Russia and the West back to its starting point.

However, the G7 is no longer the group of leading industrialized nations which once accounted for over 70 percent of the global GDP and Russia isn't the country plagued by debt and begging for Western assistance it used to be. Not only has the G20 outweighed the G8, but new emerging groups such as BRICS are also undermining its influence. The G8 excluded Russia at a time when it has already lost its appeal. Russia's shrugging off the decision is more eye-catching.

The G7 will gradually be marginalized on the global stage without Russia. Despite its relatively small economic scale, Russia's G8 membership represents a leapfrog development of the "rich country club," while the exit symbolizes the failure of major Western countries to open to the world.

The G7 now produces less than 50 percent of the world's GDP, and the figure is expected to further drop in 10 years. Due to the emerging economies, the West will play a shrinking role and Western centralism will face grim challenges. Nonetheless, this decline is relative, and the West needs to stop acting as "leaders" and instead integrate with the rest of the world.

If the G8 had given Russia the proper respect, it would have become G9 or G10 with the inclusion of major emerging countries like China, and a G20 could have been the outcome of the expansion. In this case, the crack in the European political landscape caused by the Ukraine crisis could have been avoided.

The West is the one that should reflect more on why it has to break with Russia. Why can't the G8 be a melting pot of different civilizations? How far can a self-centered West move forward under globalization?

Expelling Russia from the G8 demonstrates the selfishness and narrow-mindedness of Western politics. We have reason to believe that the G7 will become more conservative. Without collisions of ideas at meetings, it will become more lackluster in front of the G20.

The West can no longer dictate to the world. If the West firmly clings to the doctrine that its interests take precedence over others', it will be loaded with danger and perils.   

Is Russia resisting against the long-term suppression of the West? Is the country moving onto a path of imperial expansion once again? Or is the Crimea crisis an indication of both situations? How to perceive these factors mirrors the West's fundamental attitude toward the world. The West has been boundlessly expanding its interests. It's high time to cut things down to size both politically and psychologically.