Leaders of the Group of 7 nations vowed in their meeting in southern Italy to take collective action against “Chinese industrial overcapacity”, “unfair state subsidies” and state-led dominance of strategic industries and threatened sanctions against Chinese financial institutions that support Russia’s wartime economy. “There was a collective diagnosis and agreement to confront the economic and national security threats from China,” a senior U.S. administration official said at the conclusion of the three-day summit in Italy. G7 members also vowed to end allegedly unfair lending practices by China whereby the World Bank and other Western-led multilateral institutions inject money into developing countries only to see Beijing recover 100% of its loans from the same nations. “China has been taking money out of low and middle income countries,” the official said. “There’s a collective agreement to stop that form of free riding.”
In its leaders’ statement, the group stressed that it welcomed “constructive and stable” relations with China, was not trying to undercut its development, and recognized its important role in global trade. The leaders added, however, that “we will continue to take actions, as necessary and appropriate, to protect our workers and businesses from unfair practices, to level the playing field and remedy ongoing harm.” The U.S. last week imposed fresh sanctions on China-based firms supplying semiconductors to Russia. “China is not supplying weapons to Russia but it provides the ability to produce those weapons and the technology to do it, so it is in fact helping Russia,” U.S. President Joe Biden said after signing a bilateral security pact with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky.
The G7, made up of Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, the United Kingdom and the U.S., also called on China to end its export control measures, particularly involving critical minerals, that could lead to significant global supply chain disruptions. The Group of Seven called on China to “uphold its commitment to act responsibly in cyberspace”, voiced its opposition to China’s militarization and “coercive and intimidation activities in the South China Sea”, and reaffirmed that “there is no legal basis for China’s expansive maritime claims” in the region. The G7 urged Beijing to press Moscow to “stop its military aggression and immediately, completely and unconditionally withdraw its troops from Ukraine”, adding that it remained concerned about China’s opaque and accelerating expansion of its nuclear arsenal, the South China Morning Post reports.
