Hiroshima, Japan – The Group of Seven has called for “constructive” ties with China and insisted it does not seek to block the country’s development, even looking at Beijing’s rights record and territorial claims.
In their statement released on Saturday, G7 leaders struck a balance between seeking cooperation in areas such as climate change and countering Beijing’s increasingly assertive stance, which has upended decades-old assumptions about the balance. of global power.
Leaders of the club of rich democracies said they did not want to disengage from China, but acknowledged that economic resilience required “de-risking and diversifying.”
“Our policy approaches are not designed to harm China, nor do we seek to frustrate China’s progress and economic development,” the G7 leaders said.
“A rising China that abides by international rules would be in the global interest.”
But the G7, made up of Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, the United Kingdom and the United States, said it would respond to challenges posed by China’s “non-market policies and practices,” counter its “malign practices ” and “Fostering resilience to economic duress”.
The G7 also expressed concern over Beijing’s claims in the East and South China Seas, as well as its crackdown on freedoms in Hong Kong, Tibet and Xinjiang.
The G7 leaders also called on China to pressure Russia to end its war in Ukraine and for the peaceful resolution of tensions over Taiwan, which Beijing has threatened to reunify with the Chinese mainland by force if necessary.
Yuichi Hosoya, a professor of international politics at Tokyo’s Keio University, described the statement as a “very balanced approach.”
“This approach of decoupling, and not decoupling, is the EU’s preferred approach, and it meant that they did not adopt the US policy of ‘decoupling’ towards China,” Hosoya told Al Jazeera.
“Although they used some critical words towards some of China’s positions and policies, I think they created a conclusion that can be accepted by most of the major powers at this conference.”
China’s foreign ministry on Saturday dismissed the statement as an example of interference in its internal affairs and said it had complained to G7 host Japan.
Michele Geraci, a finance professor at the University of Nottingham Ningbo China who served as a senior official at Italy’s Ministry of Economic Development, said the G7 had “lost touch with reality” and should be more concerned for the future of their own economies and societies. .
“I would say China’s military is becoming more aggressive once it builds 750 military bases in the Mediterranean or the Caribbean Sea,” Geraci told Al Jazeera, referring to the North’s military’s global footprint. american
“Meanwhile, G7 leaders are simply looking for an external enemy to blame and hide our own problems.”
Along with Russia’s war in Ukraine, China’s growing power and influence have been a major focus of attention at the three-day summit in Hiroshima, Japan, which ends on Sunday.
The meeting comes amid growing calls from Western officials for coordinated action to counter Beijing, particularly in the United States, where President Joe Biden has made competition with Beijing a central pillar of his foreign policy.
Earlier this year, Bob Menendez, the Democratic chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, called for the formation of an “economic NATO” to respond to economic coercion from countries like China.
On Tuesday, US Ambassador to Japan Rahm Emanuel said the G7 would develop tools “to deter and defend against China’s economic intimidation and retaliation”.
Japan and European members, however, have been seen as more wary than the US of antagonizing Beijing because of its heavy reliance on Chinese trade, raising questions about how far such measures could go.
In their statement, G7 leaders said they would launch a “Coordination Platform on Economic Coercion” to respond to economic coercion.
The initiative would increase the G7’s “collective assessment, preparedness, deterrence and response to economic coercion” and “further foster cooperation with partners beyond the G7,” the statement said, without elaborating.
