From May 3 to May 5, the first face-to-face Group of Seven (G7) Foreign Ministers meeting in two years took place in London, England, and was followed by a 12,000-word joint statement. For the Chinese Communist Party, the meeting was very solid.
First, for the first time, the G7 openly criticized the CCP, pointing out that the CCP not only “commits human rights violations” but also “uses economic influence to bully other countries”; the G7 called on the CCP to respect human rights and fundamental freedoms, and said they need to strengthen joint efforts to stop the CCP’s “The G7 called on the Chinese Communist Party to respect human rights and fundamental freedoms, and said they need to strengthen joint efforts to stop the CCP’s “coercive economic policies.
Second, the G7 mentioned for the first time the importance of peace in the Taiwan Strait and for the first time as a whole supported Taiwan’s participation in the World Health Organization (WHO) and the World Health Assembly (WHA, which this year will be held from May 24 to June 1).
The Chinese Communist Party was stabbed where it hurts and “strongly condemns it”; however, I am afraid that what the Chinese Communist Party hates and really fears about this meeting is still this: India, South Korea, South Africa and ASEAN (Brunei, the rotating chair) were invited to participate. This is because it shows that the G7 is already reviving its influence and containment, and the expansion of its membership is on the agenda.
As we all know, the G7 is an important platform for Western countries to exert global influence. 1973, the United States, Britain, France, Germany and Japan formed the Group of Five (G5), which was changed to the Group of Six (G6) in 1975 due to the accession of Italy, and then to the current G7 in 1976 due to the accession of Canada; then, from 1997 to 2014, the G8 was formed due to the accession of Russia ( In addition, the European Union was invited to become an informal member.
During this period, as the Group of Twenty (G20) – consisting of the G7 + BRICS (Brazil, Russia, India, China, South Africa) + seven important economies (Mexico, Argentina, Turkey, Saudi Arabia, South Korea, Indonesia, Australia) + the EU (and, as is customary, the International Monetary Fund and the The G20 was established in 1999 and has been holding an annual summit since 2009. At the G20 Pittsburgh Summit in the United States in 2009, then President Barack Obama announced that the G20 had replaced the G7 as the primary forum for coordinating international economic cooperation. . Since then, the G7 meetings have been held annually, but their influence has declined.
The Chinese Communist Party has benefited the most from the establishment of the G20. Previously, the Chinese Communist Party enjoyed power in international politics and security because of its permanent seat in the UN Security Council, but had little influence in the global economy. The establishment of the G20 summit mechanism, on the other hand, began to change the global governance model dominated by developed Western countries since the end of World War II, and the CCP initially had core institutional power in the world economic and financial spheres.
However, since Trump was inaugurated as president of the United States in 2017, he has abandoned his illusions and appeasement policies toward the CCP and actively countered the CCP’s global ambitions, resulting in a historic shift in policy toward China, with the U.S. and China moving from a trade war to a new Cold War and beginning to “decouple” from the CCP in some areas, and the international strategic posture evolving rapidly toward a bipolar confrontation pattern between the U.S. and China.
Against this backdrop, the United States and the Western community have been comprehensively considering and redesigning their strategies toward China. One of the major measures was to revive the traditional influence and containment power of the G7, and to process, transform, and rebuild the G7 meetings into a mechanism for cooperation among democratic countries, or the Democracy 10 (D10) model.
In 2020, then-President Trump proposed to revamp the G7; on May 30 of that year, Trump told a group of journalists on board Air Force One that the G7 was “obsolete. Trump plans to invite the leaders of Australia, India, South Korea and Russia to join (previously, President Trump repeatedly proposed to restore Russia’s G7 membership), and once called the 46th summit “G10” and “G11”. Trump made it clear that he wanted the newly invited countries to discuss the “future of China” with the G7. The four countries are located in the east, west, north and south of China, surrounding China in the middle.
At that time, Australian Prime Minister Morrison and South Korean President Moon Jae-in expressed their willingness to accept the invitation to the meeting, and Indian Prime Minister Modi said he was willing to work with the United States and other countries to ensure the success of the upcoming summit. However, Russia’s participation was blocked by other G7 members: the United Kingdom, Canada and the European Union all made clear their opposition, saying that Russia’s behavior had not changed since 2014. And Russia also had reservations about Trump’s invitation.
For a variety of reasons, Trump’s plan for a G7 makeover did not materialize. However, the direction Trump pointed out has been largely accepted by the UK (which has been the new vanguard of counter-communist efforts since the second half of 2020). For example, in 2020 the UK and the US were mulling over inviting the G7 countries, together with Australia, South Korea and India, to form a democratic 10-nation alliance to develop their own 5G technologies and products to get rid of their dependence on Chinese Huawei’s products and the pressure to take them.
This time, the UK, as the host of the G7 meeting in 2021, naturally pushed hard to transform the G7 into an important forum for major democracies. This is also supported by other member states. For example, on May 4, German Foreign Minister Maas praised Britain’s plan. He said that “authoritarian states or authoritative rulers are constantly trying to challenge liberal democracy with their own political models,” so it is good to establish common values and strategies within the framework of the G7.
Now, the UK is taking the opportunity of its G7 presidency to invite India, South Korea, South Africa and ASEAN to participate. This is only the first step in the G7 transformation. Just this step is enough to embolden the Chinese Communist Party.
First, India, South Korea and ASEAN are in the Indo-Pacific region, and inviting them to participate is clearly in line with the Indo-Pacific strategy of Britain and the United States.
Second, the expansion of the G7 highlights the confrontation between the values of democratic countries and the Communist regime.
Third, the expansion of the G7 will enable the democratic industrial countries to coordinate with each other and make the G7 influence rise, which will naturally make the CCP’s influence in the G20 decline.
Fourth, an important goal of G7 expansion is to counter the CCP’s Belt and Road Initiative by seeking to create an alternative construction system that encourages the promotion of well-managed private sector projects, thereby demonstrating to developing countries that there are alternatives to CCP funding in promoting economic growth and trade.
What makes the Chinese Communist Party even more anxious is that the G7 transformation will not just go this far. So what will be the follow-up action?
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