G-7 Looks at China’s question, but the need for answers is growing

Photographer: Go Nakamura / Getty Images

The leaders of the Group of Seven Industrialized Countries tipped their legs around China’s problem during their first virtual meeting in 2021 and failed to disguise the growing feeling that it is a problem they will soon have to face.

Joe Biden’s debut on the world stage as US president showed further efforts to resume the transatlantic relationship and highlighted growing unrest with Beijing’s behavior. European Union leaders did not always share those concerns of the United States during Donald Trump’s four years in the White House.

The leaders discussed China on the appeal at length, according to an EU official who knew the conversation, but the mention of the subject in the statement that followed provided little detail. Members pledged to “engage” with Beijing and, without selecting any particular country, “consult each other” to address any “non-market-oriented policies and practices”.

The G-7 communiqué, on the other hand, lived on a commitment support government spending to help economies recover from the coronavirus pandemic, a promise to eliminate net carbon emissions by 2050 and their obvious relief from the return of multilateralism after the Trump era.

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China’s growth and the increasingly authoritarian leaning of President Xi Jinping’s administration is the defining challenge for industrialized and democratic nations that have seen no challenge to hegemony since the decline of the Soviet Union a generation ago.

In the speeches after the G-7 phone call, the leaders put flesh on the bones of their talks and here was a sign that they might be able to create a common answer in the coming months.

German Chancellor Angela Merkel’s remarks were stronger than they often were, as she highlighted what she saw as Beijing’s efforts to exploit the pandemic.

“China has won a global blow in recent years,” said Merkel, who is due to resign later this year after a 16-year term at the Munich Security Conference. “As a transatlantic union and as democrats of this world, we will have to counter it through concrete actions.”

The dilemma for Merkel and the rest of the G-7 is that China has become a significant trading partner and a producer of key technologies on which to depend to sustain growth. With their economies struggling to recover from the Covid-19 blockades, their leverage is limited.

Merkel’s stronger tone may be due, in part, to seeing Biden as a more reliable and consistent partner than Trump and one with whom he can build a common approach. It was an open secret in Berlin that Merkel had given up trying to work with Biden’s predecessor.

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The new president’s own rhetoric has indicated that US policy on China will be softened slightly.