US (Or Japan) Leads G7 Democracies Against China And Russia

ANALYSIS – The heads of the Group of Seven (G7) nations – the world’s most powerful democracies are meeting in Hiroshima, Japan, to try to form a unified global front against China and Russia.

The United States should be leading this effort, but with a weak and befuddled Joe Biden as president, we will need to see what transpires.

Japan, led by Prime Minister Fumio Kishida, looks to be setting the agenda, and China is at the top of it.

The G7 consists of the U.S., Japan, U.K., France, Germany, Canada, Italy and the European Union (EU) – represented as a bloc.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky is also attending.

The summit will also include eight other guest nations, part of a complicated diplomatic effort meant to settle the world’s most serious crises.

Regional powerhouses India and Brazil will attend along with ASEAN host Indonesia, Pacific Islands Forum chair the Cook Islands, African Union chair Comoros, Vietnam, South Korea and Australia.

As we can see from the participation of Vietnam, not all those in attendance will be democracies. But all should have a stake in facing Chinese, as well as Russian aggression.

They will take part in a focused outreach session intended to bring some reluctant leaders into the fold in opposition to Russia’s war in Ukraine and Beijing’s growing military assertiveness.

Kishida’s choice of his hometown, Hiroshima, as host location highlights his desire to put nuclear security issues at the top of this year’s agenda, even as Japan worries about both China and North Korea’s growing nuclear arsenals.

As the host of this year’s G7 summit and its only Asian member, Japan will place regional security prominently on the summit’s agenda, said Yasuhiro Matsuda, an international relations professor at the University of Tokyo.

China – stupidly and counterproductively in my view – recently sent a naval force led by one of its biggest destroyers on a 12-day cruise around Japan in a blustery display of military power in the lead-up to the G7 summit.

In response to an increasingly belligerent China, Japan has moved to double its military spending and is hoping to open a NATO liaison office in the country – the first of its kind in Asia.

As CNN reported:

While much of the attention will be focused on Ukraine – including how to further tighten the screws on Russia and defuse rising nuclear tensions –the three-day summit also provides an opportunity for G7 leaders to recalibrate and coordinate their approach toward China, which has refused to condemn the invasion and instead bolstered ties with Moscow.

Russia’s aggression in Ukraine, and China’s steadfast unwillingness to condemn it, has in many ways made it easier for the U.S. to isolate China.

Kishida has rightly warned that “Ukraine today may be East Asia tomorrow.”

But CNN adds: “agreeing on a common approach to the world’s second largest economy will not be an easy task.” China, a global economic powerhouse, is an important trade partner to the G7 countries.

Sun Yun, director of the China Program at the Washington-based Stimson Center, notes to CNN that: “It is difficult to have one single position on China across seven countries considering their different concerns and relationships with Beijing.”

Projecting unity on China also comes as Beijing recharges diplomatic efforts to play nice with Europe and drive a wedge between the EU and the U.S.

And in some cases, Chinese diplomacy is paying off.

In April, French President Emmanuel Macron provoked concern among allies when he said, after an unusually cozy visit to Beijing, that Europe must not be “just America’s followers” and get “caught up in crises that are not ours,” referring, of course, to a potential Chinese invasion of Taiwan.

The G7 foreign ministers quickly did damage control by stating that there was “no change” in the bloc’s position on Taiwan. They also called on China to “abstain from threats, coercion, intimidation, or the use of force” against the self-ruled, democratic island.

Let’s see if this G7 summit will produce more concrete actions to back up the stern talk and France doesn’t muck things up for everyone.

The opinions expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the positions of American Liberty News.

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