G7 leaders are set to unveil measures to respond to Chinese economic coercion, as the United States, Japan and other members of the group intensify efforts to adopt a unified approach to Beijing.
The US National Security Adviser, Jake Sullivan, said that on Saturday the leaders of the G7 countries – the United States, the United Kingdom, Japan, Canada, Germany, France and Italy – will issue a statement on China and lay out the tools that the countries will use to counter the economic pressures. .
“The G7 leaders will define a common set of tools to address the concerns facing each of our countries,” Sullivan said at the G7 summit in Hiroshima, Japan.
Sullivan said tools to enhance economic security would include steps to make supply chains more resilient, outside investment measures and export controls designed to protect sensitive technology. The United States and its allies are becoming increasingly concerned about China’s ability to secure foreign technology to aid its military.
The measures are issued as Washington and Beijing work to orchestrate a series of high-level meetings to follow up on the agreement between President Joe Biden and President Xi Jinping last year to rebuild the relationship between the two superpowers, which is at its worst state in decades.
Sullivan dismissed suggestions that the G7 statement on China could affect efforts to restore relations, saying the language was “not hostile” and that the United States and its allies wanted to work with China.
It’s not a one-dimensional cartoon issue. “It’s a complex, multidimensional politics of a complex relationship with a really important country,” Sullivan said.
British officials said G7 leaders would announce a platform that would provide a forum to identify economic vulnerabilities and coordinate protection measures.
“The platform will address the increasing and malicious use of coercive economic measures to interfere in the sovereign affairs of other countries,” British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak said ahead of Saturday’s economic security debate.
We must be clear about the growing challenge we face. China is engaged in coordinated and strategic economic competition.
US Ambassador to Japan Rahm Emanuel said that China is using debt-trap diplomacy and “primary exercise of power” to undermine countries’ political and economic stability.
In recent months, China has imposed sanctions on US defense firms Lockheed Martin and Raytheon, and launched a national security investigation into US chip maker Micron. US due diligence firm Mintz and Bain also raided the advisory firm, detaining an executive from Japan’s Astellas Pharma group.
The G7 will release its closing statement on Saturday, a day earlier than scheduled because the leaders are expected to focus on Ukraine on Sunday. Ukraine’s president, Volodymyr Zelensky, will travel to Asia for the first time since Russia invaded his country to join the summit in person.
The coordination on China follows two years of efforts by the Biden administration, with help from Japan, to promote unity among G7 members on the challenges posed by Beijing. European officials said that maintaining coordination of action was stronger than unilateral actions by individual countries.
China on Friday responded to US allegations of economic coercion by saying that the US and its allies “use their great power status . . and economic coercion to force compliance and engage in coercive diplomacy.”
Additional reporting by Joe Leahy in Beijing and Alice Hancock in Brussels
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