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Leaders of the world’s largest economies unveiled an infrastructure plan Saturday for the developing world to compete with China’s global initiatives, but were searching for consensus on how to make a strong call to Beijing over human rights abuses.
Citing China for its forced labor practices is part of President Joe Biden’s campaign to persuade fellow Democratic leaders to present a more united front to compete economically with Beijing. But while they agreed to work to compete against China, there was less unity about how antagonistic the overall position the group should take.
Canada, the United Kingdom and France largely supported Biden’s position, while Germany, Italy and the European Union showed more hesitation during the first session of the Group of Seven summit on Saturday, according to two senior Biden administration officials. Officials who briefed reporters were not allowed to discuss the private meeting publicly and spoke on condition of anonymity.
The statement summarizing the meeting’s commitments was written and its contents will not be clear until it is released when the summit ends on Sunday. White House officials said late Saturday that they believed China, in some sense, could be called up for “non-market policies and human rights abuses.”
At his first summit as president, Biden made sure to hold a one-on-one meeting with leaders, from French President Emmanuel Macron to German Chancellor Angela Merkel to Italian Prime Minister Mario Draghi, a day after his meeting with British ministers. Minister Boris Johnson seems to be personally trying to banish memories of the chaos that his predecessor so often brought to these gatherings.
Macron told Biden that cooperation was necessary on a range of issues and told the US president that “it’s great to have an American president who is part of the club and so willing to cooperate.” Relations between allies have soured during the four years of Donald Trump’s presidency and his “America First” foreign policy.
For her part, Merkel downplayed the differences over China and the Nord Stream 2 pipeline, which will transport natural gas from Russia to Germany, bypassing Ukraine.
“The atmosphere is very cooperative, characterized by common interests. There are very good, constructive and very lively discussions in the sense that one wants to work together,” Merkel said.
White House officials said Biden wants leaders of the Group of Seven nations — the United States, Britain, Canada, France, Germany, Japan and Italy — to speak with one voice against forced labor practices targeting Uighur Muslims in China and other ethnic minorities. Biden hopes the condemnation is part of a joint statement that will be issued on Sunday when the summit ends, but some European allies are reluctant to split forcefully with Beijing.
China has become one of the most urgent sub-stations for the rich nations summit, the first since 2019. Last year’s meeting was canceled due to COVID-19, and recovery from the epidemic dominates this year’s discussions, with leaders expected to commit to participating. At least 1 billion vaccine injections are given to countries that are struggling.
The allies also took the first steps in introducing an infrastructure proposal called “Building Back Better for the World,” a name that echoes Biden’s campaign slogan. The plan calls for hundreds of billions of dollars to be spent in cooperation with the private sector while adhering to climate standards and business practices.
It is designed to compete with China’s trillion-dollar “Belt and Road Initiative”, which has launched a network of projects and sea lanes that wraps around large parts of the world, chiefly Asia and Africa. Critics say China’s projects often create huge debts and expose countries to undue influence from Beijing.
Britain also wants the world’s democracies to become less dependent on the Asian economic giant. The UK government said Saturday’s discussions will address “how we can shape the global order to present it to our people to uphold our values”, including by diversifying supply chains that currently rely heavily on China.
Not every European power has viewed China as a harsh light like Biden, who has painted the rivalry with China as the defining competition of the twenty-first century. But there are some signs that Europe is ready to impose more scrutiny.
Before Biden took office in January, the European Commission announced that it had reached an agreement with Beijing on a deal aimed at providing Europe and China with greater access to each other’s markets. The Biden administration had hoped to hold consultations on the agreement.
But the agreement was put on hold, and the European Union in March announced sanctions targeting four Chinese officials implicated in human rights abuses in Xinjiang. Beijing responded by imposing sanctions on several MEPs and other Europeans who criticize the Chinese Communist Party.
Biden administration officials see an opportunity to take concrete action to speak out against China’s reliance on forced labor as an “affront to human dignity.”
While China’s call in the G7 statement would not impose any immediate sanctions on Beijing, a senior administration official said the action would send a message that leaders were serious about defending human rights and working together to eliminate the use of forced labor.
According to researchers, an estimated 1 million or more people – mostly Uyghurs – have been detained in re-education camps in western China’s Xinjiang region in recent years. Chinese authorities have been accused of imposing forced labor, systematically forced birth control, torture, and separating children from their imprisoned parents.
Beijing rejects allegations of crimes.
Johnson, the summit host, also welcomed the leaders of “guest nations” South Korea, Australia and South Africa, as well as the head of the United Nations, to the summit in order to “intensify cooperation between the world’s democratic and technologically advanced nations.”
Leaders planned for a Saturday night barbecue, with roasted marshmallows, buttered hot rum, and a parade of the sea shacks band.
India was also invited but its delegation did not attend in person due to the severe coronavirus outbreak in the country.
Biden wrapped up his trip on Wednesday with a meeting in Geneva with Russian President Vladimir Putin. The White House announced Saturday that it will no longer hold a joint press conference, eliminating the opportunity to draw comparisons with the availability following the Trump-Putin summit in Helsinki 2018, in which Trump sided with Moscow at the expense of his own intelligence agencies. Only Biden will address the media after the meeting.
Putin, in an interview with NBC News, said that the relationship between the United States and Russia “has deteriorated to its lowest point in recent years.”
He added that while Trump was a “talented” and “colored” person, Biden was a “professional man” in politics, with “some advantages, some disadvantages, but there would not be any impulsive moves” by the US president.
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Lemmer Report from Plymouth, England. Associated Press writers Danica Kirka and Sylvia Hoy in Falmouth, England, contributed to this report.
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