Blinken and Lan Taowen spoke out on China at the G7 foreign ministers’ meeting.
The G7 foreign ministers’ meeting ended on Wednesday (5) British time, followed by a 12,400-word joint communiqué in which they criticized China by name for violating international rules in a number of areas, such as human rights abuses in Xinjiang and economic coercion. The meeting also mentioned China’s violation of the Sino-British Joint Declaration in Hong Kong and called on Taiwan to join the World Health Organization and the World Health Assembly. According to scholars, the communiqué of the G7 foreign ministers’ meeting reveals a more concrete international consensus on the containment of China. (By Chen Junhao)
The joint communiqué of this G7 foreign ministers’ meeting lists at great length the consensus of member countries on the China issue. First of all, the Western countries mentioned in the communiqué that they are concerned about China’s large-scale political “re-education camps,” forced labor and ethnic cleansing of the Uighurs in Xinjiang, and the human rights situation in Tibet. The joint communiqué calls for an unrestricted investigation mission to Xinjiang and urges China to allow the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights to send a team to investigate.
In addition, the seven foreign ministers called on Beijing to respect Hong Kong’s high degree of autonomy and to uphold the rights and freedoms granted to Hong Kong people under the Joint Declaration and the Basic Law, arguing that China has violated its international commitments and legal responsibilities in Hong Kong. The joint communiqué also urged the HKSAR government to stop targeting and sniping at people defending democratic values, to uphold judicial independence, and to ensure that cases tried in Hong Kong are not sent to China.
The seven foreign ministers also supported Taiwan’s membership in the World Health Organization (WHO) and the World Health Assembly (WHA), describing Taiwan’s participation as meaningful and conducive to world cooperation on various issues, especially Taiwan’s experience in combating the new coronavirus outbreak, which could benefit many countries.
On the economic front, the joint communiqué supported an open society and fair and open markets, arguing that transparent and predictable international rules and standards are necessary to achieve the desired market state, saber-rattling China for oppressing other countries with arbitrary and bullying economic policies and means, criticizing Beijing’s development in trade, investment and finance, and demanding Beijing to respect intellectual property rights and stop theft.
British Foreign Secretary Lan Tao Wen said of China after the meeting that “Beijing should reflect on itself and understand the views gathered at the G7 meeting and understand the need to follow basic international rules rather than resorting to anger every time.” The BBC asked U.S. Secretary of State John Blinken whether the West should divest from Chinese investment projects, and Blinken said “we have to be very careful to confirm what the nature of Chinese investment projects are, and if China is investing in strategic industries then the West should be extra careful.”
Shen Rongqin, an associate professor at York University in Canada, interviewed by the station, believes that, compared to the G7 summit held in Canada two years ago, this G7 foreign ministers’ meeting has gathered a stronger international consensus than previous meetings, that China and Russia are the West’s biggest competitors in the future.
Shen Rongqin said: But basically you can see that the tone of the G7 is basically falling apart, he it is no way to reach consensus, Trump (Trump) even left early, but this time the G7, although not a summit, but a meeting of foreign ministers, but it is clear that both sides can reach such a long, more than 12,000 words of the statement, to reach a lot of matters including geopolitics, epidemic control In the past two years, we can see that the relationship between the United States and the other six democracies has changed significantly. After Biden took office, at least in conjunction with the consensus of the world’s democracies, China and Russia are now clearly defined as the West’s main rivals or enemies.
The G7 meeting released the West’s demands on Hong Kong, Taiwan and other situations, but whether the flow of “loud thunder but little rain”, Shen Rongqin believes that this concern is inevitable, but this time the situation may be a little different.
Shen Rongqin said: this year (meeting) the sense of siege China has become stronger, so not sure how strong the intensity will be, but can confirm that at least a little stronger than the consensus of the last meeting, there should be no problem, but to what extent, it remains to be seen.
According to Shen Rongqin, Chinese Communist Party General Secretary Xi Jinping’s “war wolf diplomacy” and aggressive militarization have drawn different countries into the vortex of China’s siege. In the case of Taiwan, for example, Chinese Ambassador to France Luciano sent a letter to the French Senate’s Friends of Taiwan group, threatening France’s support for Taiwan’s participation in international organizations with sanctions from China, and the Belt and Road Conference has alerted EU countries.
The meeting also touched on the Russian issue. The joint communiqué denounced Russia for issuing false information to instigate a message war, and expressed extreme concern over the recent sudden garrisoning of 15 troops in eastern Ukraine by Russian President Vladimir Putin, and the poisoning of opposition leader Navalny, which is related to Russia. As for the recent heating up of the situation in the Taiwan Strait, the seven foreign ministers believe that the East and South China Seas are strictly concerned about the peace and stability of the Taiwan Strait, and the communiqué severely condemns any unilateral changes to the situation in the region, threatening the Yin Ding of the Taiwan Strait masonry area, opposing the militarization of any country in the region’s islands and intimidating neighboring countries, and referring to the 2016 United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea and the South China Sea Arbitration ruling, which can be used as a reference to resolve conflicts in the South China Sea.
The G7 summit will be held in Cornwall, southwest England, in June for the summit of the seven major industrialized nations (G7), which is also the first G7 meeting attended by U.S. President Joe Biden after he took office.
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