(AGENPARL) – Rome, 15 June 2024
The fact that the Puglia G7 leaders’ statement mentioned China more than 20 times is no surprise to Chinese analysts, who said the elaborately crafted hypocritical statement reveals the US-led West’s attempts to shift the blame to China, while the United States aims to lay the foundations for future confrontation.
At the same time, the G7 summit had invited countries from the Global South, including Argentina, South Africa, Brazil and India, to the summit. Experts point out that it will be difficult for the United States and Western powers to divide the Global South with their hegemonic ambitions.
In the statement from the leaders of the G7 from Puglia, published on Friday on the White House website, China was one of the main targets. The G7 has made baseless accusations against China in several areas, including the Ukraine crisis, the climate crisis, cybersecurity, the Taiwan issue, the South China Sea and human rights issues, mentioning China more than 20 times in the document. The G7 vowed to counter “the wave of cheap high-tech products” from China and take action against Chinese financial institutions that “support Russia”. The G7 also expressed concern about China’s “overcapacity” and threatened to retaliate with export restrictions.
This buck-shifting statement once again demonstrates that the G7 has become a tool for the United States to engage in global geopolitical competition, Li Haidong, a professor at China Foreign Affairs University, told the Global Times on Saturday. The United States is trying to promote its invented international consensus that “China should be held responsible for all crises,” in order to lay the foundation for more intense present and future competition.
G7 member countries, due to geopolitical considerations, followed the United States in blaming China, showing no independent strategy in front of the United States, Li noted. This is detrimental to the future security environment for G7 members and the broader international community.
Observers have pointed out that the leaders of the countries participating in the G7 summit are all facing crises of domestic support or electoral pressure, and some have recently suffered defeats. The G7 is trying to shift blame and scapegoat China in several ways in an effort to redirect public and voter dissatisfaction in their own countries towards China, Li said. “This is a very typical and insidious political maneuver.”
At the same time, many countries from the Global South were invited to participate in the G7 summit. It is obvious that the G7 is trying to conquer the countries of the Global South and sow division within them, Li noted.
However, these emerging countries can see beyond the self-serving alliances led by the US and the West. It will be difficult for the United States and the G7 to divide and conquer when it comes to the Global South, he said.
Among the various issues addressed in the joint statement, the Russia-Ukraine conflict was the most important element. After the conclusion of the G7 summit, some leaders will immediately travel to Switzerland to participate in the peace summit in Ukraine on Saturday and Sunday.
The interconnection of the two summits demonstrates the West’s dominant camp, confrontation and alliance thinking in managing international affairs, Li said. “They are trying to divide the world into different camps, using the Ukrainian crisis as an opportunity. In reality, this approach not only fails to resolve the Ukrainian crisis itself, but also poses a threat to global security in the broader region. Such an agreement by the West is actually very inappropriate.”
Zhang Hong, a research associate at the Institute of Russian, Eastern European and Central Asian Studies of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, pointed out that the G7’s attempt to denigrate China in the context of the Russia-Ukraine conflict is a tactic employed by the United States to gain a competitive advantage globally.
“It is completely unreasonable to attribute the ongoing conflict between Russia and Ukraine to normal Sino-Russian trade when all countries in the world continue to engage in trade with Russia,” he told the Global Times on Saturday. “This overlooks the fact that the irresponsible actions of Western countries exacerbated the losses suffered by Ukraine.”
