CCP Sheds Crocodile Tears Over G7 Once Again

British Foreign Secretary David Cameron (L), European Union Foreign Policy Chief Josep Borrell (2nd-L), U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken (3rd-L), French Foreign Minister Stephane Sejourne (C-top), Canadian Minister of Foreign Affairs Melanie Joly (3rd-R), Italian Foreign Minister Antonio Tajani (2nd-R), Japanese Foreign Minister Yoko Kamikawa (R), and German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock (C-bottom) attend the G7 foreign ministers meeting on Capri island, Italy, on April 18, 2024. (Remo Casilli/Pool/AFP/Getty Images)

Commentary

Communist China and the Group of Seven (G7) nations are oil and water: communist versus capitalist (some of them tipping toward socialism), mercantilist versus free-market, and intellectual property thieves versus intellectual property protectionists.

For several decades, the West—including international institutions such as the International Monetary Fund and World Bank, along with multinational investors—has funded China’s economic growth with the expectation that the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) would ameliorate its belligerence on the world scene, curtail its persecution of minority groups, theft of technology and military secrets, and use of unfair trade practices aimed at capturing overseas markets.

Those expectations—that the Chinese regime would somehow transform internally into a more open and “liberated” society through access to international financial organizations and the United Nations—have been dashed by continuing CCP actions that seek to exploit that access for its own ends. There are news reports of Chinese spying, manufacturing overcapacity, continued state subsidies to industries, the Chinese military’s (People’s Liberation Army) encroachment within Taiwan’s territorial waters and airspace, and the continued use of forced labor in East Turkistan (also known as “Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region”).

As part of its ongoing information warfare campaign, Beijing periodically condemns commonsense statements by the G7 whenever these types of communist underhandedness are exposed.

Let us examine the issue.

The Group of Seven

The G7 is an intergovernmental organization comprising the largest developed economies globally—France, Germany, Italy, Japan, the United States, the United Kingdom, and Canada.

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The G7 leaders meet periodically to discuss international economic and monetary issues, with the group’s presidency rotating among the members. The leaders have previously addressed critical issues such as debt crises, oil embargoes and shortages, the COVID-19 pandemic, and various aspects of G7 relations with communist China.

For example, last December’s G7 statement after a virtual conference included the following: “We will push for a level playing field for our workers and companies. We will seek to address the challenges posed by China’s non-market policies and practices, which distort the global economy. We will counter malign practices, such as illegitimate technology transfer or data disclosure. We will foster resilience to economic coercion.”

There was much more focus on matters such as human rights, peace and stability in the Taiwan Strait, and militarization of the South China Sea. These areas of concern have been addressed in various ways in G7 statements over the past several years, with Chinese state-run media breathlessly echoing complaints expressed thereafter by Chinese diplomats and others.

For example, an October 2023 article from Global Times condemned a G7 joint statement on China’s unfair trade practices: “Chinese officials and analysts have rejected the G7’s accusation of economic coercion and stated that the G7 led by the United States is actually trying to form exclusive small cliques of rich countries to protect their interests while disrupting global cooperation and development.”

Communist Chinese Complaints Continue

Given recent events, this excerpt from the G7’s December statement was particularly noteworthy: “We call on China to act in accordance with its obligations under the Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations and the Vienna Convention on Consular relations, and not to conduct interference activities aimed at undermining the security and safety of our communities, the integrity of our democratic institutions and our economic prosperity.”

Right on cue on April 23, The Wall Street Journal reported on “the fourth arrest of an alleged China spy in Germany in 24 hours.” The article quoted the German interior minister: “If it is confirmed that China’s intelligence services had spies in the European Parliament, then we’re talking of an attack on European democracy from within.” The investigation is ongoing, but this spate of “caught Chinese spies” would appear to put an exclamation point on the G7 leaders’ statement.

Those were just the latest spy-catching incidents in Europe, as Politico-Europe previously reported on ubiquitous Chinese spies in Brussels: “As many as one in five of the Chinese journalists working in Brussels are suspected to be intelligence officers, according to the Belgian security services. Indeed, so many Chinese spies are suspected of operating in Brussels that some treat it as a kind of a joke.”

The latest G7 conference in Italy in April produced a scathing statement on Chinese human rights: “We remain concerned about the human rights situation in China, including in Xinjiang and Tibet. We express our concerns about the deterioration of pluralism and civil and political rights in Hong Kong since the 2020 National Security Law. We reemphasize these concerns following the recent passage of the Safeguarding National Security Ordinance under Article 23 of the Basic Law, which will further erode autonomy, human rights, and fundamental freedoms in Hong Kong.”

Three days later, Global Times quoted Chinese foreign ministry spokesman Wang Wenbin, who claimed that the G7 statement was “a deliberate mischaracterization of the facts and truth, and a blatant interference in China’s internal affairs.” Wang further spun the G7’s criticism by claiming that, under the new national security Law, “Hong Kong has restored order and is set to thrive, and Xinjiang and Xizang [Tibet] enjoy social harmony, prosperity and stability where people of all ethnic groups live a happy life.”

“Restoring order with Chinese characteristics” apparently means loss of freedom, liberty, and democracy for Hongkongers, a process that has been ongoing since that law was passed in 2020, while “prosperity and stability with Chinese characteristics” actually means cultural genocide for Uyghurs and Tibetans.

That G7 statement on human rights in China was spot on!

Concluding Thoughts

Chinese leader Xi Jinping’s preachings about China’s peaceful coexistence, continued economic opening, and cooperation belie the facts, and the G7 indirectly exposes those truths based on reality.

Even left-of-center observers historically friendly to engagement with China are taking note of aggressive Chinese trade practices. Neoliberal Robert Kuttner at Prospect wrote on April 30 that an obstacle to “entente” with China “is increased Chinese mercantilism, specifically the pattern of excess production across a broad range of industries.”

For example, he noted that “Chinese subsidies [of the auto industry] range from interest rates of zero or below, and subsidized steel and batteries for electric cars, to direct government support,” resulting in the dumping of Chinese-built electric vehicles on the global market at “far below the cost of production.”

The result? A quintupling of Chinese auto exports over the last three years directly due to these unfair trade practices. That is what Xi means by “cooperation with Chinese characteristics.”

Similarly, the leaders of Taiwan and the Philippines are learning what “peaceful coexistence with Chinese characteristics” means as the People’s Liberation Army deploys ever more ships and aircraft around Taiwan, and Chinese coast guard ships use water cannons against Filipino vessels in the West Philippine Sea. It means peaceful coexistence on the CCP’s terms.

No wonder communist Chinese caterwauling about G7 public statements increasingly fall on deaf years!

Views expressed in this article are opinions of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of The Epoch Times.