HIROSHIMA, Japan—Economic security was a major focus on the second day of the G-7 summit of leading industrial nations in Hiroshima, with leaders outlining actions to counter Beijing’s “economic coercion” and non-market practices.
The G-7 countries—the United States, the UK, Japan, Canada, Germany, France, and Italy—announced on May 20 their plan to address the “disturbing rise in incidents of economic coercion.”
“We will work together to ensure that attempts to weaponize economic dependencies by forcing [G-7] members and our partners, including small economies to comply and conform will fail and face consequences,” the G-7 leaders’ statement on economic security reads.
“We express serious concern over economic coercion and call on all countries to refrain from its use.”
U.S. national security adviser Jake Sullivan, who briefed reporters on May 20 on the sidelines of the G-7 summit, said the leaders agreed to deploy “a common set of tools” to confront China’s economic coercion.
“These economic security tools will include steps to build resilience in our supply chains. They will also include steps to protect sensitive technology, like export controls and outbound investment measures,” Sullivan said.
However, the leaders are emphasizing that their goal is to reduce risk, not decouple from China.
“Our policy approaches are not designed to harm China nor do we seek to thwart China’s economic progress and development,” reads the G-7 summit communique released on May 20.
Leveraging Economic Power
In recent years, China has increased its efforts to leverage its economic might to force political change around the world.For example, after Australia called for an independent investigation into the origins of COVID-19 in April 2020, the communist regime announced trade sanctions on select Australian products.
The Chinese regime’s economic coercion of Australia has served as a “wake-up call” to other countries, Liz Truss, the UK’s foreign secretary at the time, warned.
There have been other instances of Chinese coercion in the past, including with Japan, which saw Chinese shipments of rare earth metals blocked because of a territorial dispute in 2010. South Korea faced business boycotts from China in 2017 after installing a U.S. missile defense system. Recently, Beijing retaliated against Lithuania after it attempted to strengthen ties with Taiwan.
China has recently pressured U.S. companies, too. For example, in reaction to U.S. export bans on advanced semiconductors, Beijing initiated a probe into memory chip company Micron. Furthermore, in March, Chinese police stormed the Beijing office of Mintz Group, a U.S. due diligence firm, and detained five Chinese citizens working for the company. Later, Chinese police questioned employees at the Shanghai branch of Bain & Co., a U.S. consulting firm.
British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak warned about China’s increasing economic coercion.
“We should be clear-eyed about the growing challenge we face. China is engaged in a concerted and strategic economic contest,” Sunak said in his remarks before the meeting on May 20.
To address these issues, the G-7 leaders have announced the formation of a new “Coordination Platform on Economic Coercion.”
The new platform “will address the growing and pernicious use of coercive economic measures to interfere in the sovereign affairs of other states,” Sunak said.
‘Direct and Candid’
Sullivan dismissed the notion that the G-7 statement would deteriorate U.S.–China relations.“I think you will find the China language to be totally straightforward. It is not hostile or gratuitous. It is just direct and candid,” he said. “It is a multidimensional, complex policy for a complex relationship with a really important country.”
Also, in response to China’s Belt and Road Initiative, G-7 leaders plan to boost infrastructure investments in underdeveloped countries.
At last year’s summit, the group pledged to mobilize $600 billion in public and private funding for infrastructure by 2027.
During a meeting on infrastructure and investment at this year’s summit, President Joe Biden said that the United States has already mobilized more than $30 billion in investments to date.
“Together, we have a lot of work to do to close the infrastructure gap and in low- and middle-income countries,” Biden said.
The leaders are also promising not to rely on China for critical minerals and to take steps to build diverse and resilient supply chains for clean energy.
According to a source close to the summit discussions, the G-7 leaders are more united on China this year than they were two years ago. There has been more progress and agreement on what concrete actions the G-7 could take, the source told The Epoch Times.
However, there are still some disagreements over how to implement these actions, which demands that governments be more creative to overcome differences, the source said.
The summit communique also included a statement from the G-7 leaders about Taiwan.
“We reaffirm the importance of peace and stability across the Taiwan Strait as indispensable to security and prosperity in the international community,” the leaders stated. “There is no change in the basic positions of the [G-7] members on Taiwan, including stated one China policies. We call for a peaceful resolution of cross-Strait issues.”
An important focus of this year’s summit was “Outreach to the Global South,” according to the summit agenda, which intends to increase outreach to Latin America, Africa, the rest of Asia, and the Pacific to counter China’s growing influence in these regions.
To that end, a record number of leaders were invited to this year’s summit, including representatives of Australia, the Republic of Korea, India, Brazil, Indonesia, Vietnam, the Comoros (representing the African Union), and the Cook Islands (representing the Pacific Islands Forum).
