G7 values ​​are stronger than cash

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Since his election as President of the United States, Joe Biden has not had a chance to announce “America is back“. The basic message of the G7 summit that just ended in Cornwall can be summarized as “The West is back.” The goal of the leaders at the meeting is to show unity, goals, and leadership in solving world problems—and get in touch with the wider world. .

This is the first summit of the Group of Seven (G7) countries including the United States, Japan, the United Kingdom, France, Germany, Canada, and Italy since the outbreak of the new crown pneumonia epidemic and the failure of Donald Trump.But although the leaders gathered in Cornwall demonstrated Ambitious, The summit left a major question about whether the delivery of G7 is consistent with its rhetoric.

Delivery issues shrouded many of the major issues discussed by the G7-including vaccines, climate, and efforts to build international infrastructure to compete with China’s “One Belt, One Road” initiative.

In terms of vaccines, G7 committed to Provide 1 billion doses of vaccine to developing countries within one year.But this impressive-sounding number may still be too small it is too late. The World Health Organization has Say The world needs 11 billion doses of vaccine to effectively fight Covid-19. The roll-out may take 18 months will mean more deaths-and enough time to develop new vaccine-resistant virus strains.

Competition with China is the basic theme of most of the G7 summit. But the Chinese government may promise to provide more vaccines than G7 to the wider world.However, outsiders questioned effect The emergence of Chinese vaccines may mean that this is a mixed blessing.

The G7’s determination to oppose China’s growing global influence is most clearly reflected in the group’s support for the West to replace China’s “Belt and Road” initiative to build infrastructure in developing countries.The idea is G7 options Will provide higher environmental standards and higher lending and governance transparency.

But it may also provide less funding-the G7 Communiqué has become clearly ambiguous on this point.At the same time, Chinese banks and companies are already working hard on iconic projects around the world-such as building a new Capital of egypt.

In addition to announcements and headlines, there is a deeper question about how united the Western world is in its determination to oppose Chinese forces. Even at the margins of the G7, the languages ​​spoken in the United States and Japan are significantly stronger than those of the Europeans.

The four countries invited to join the Cornish Group of Seven — especially India and Australia — are clearly important for any effort to organize a democratic world against China. But just before the G7 summit, French President Emmanuel Macron said, Emphasize Europe needs to maintain “independence in our strategy towards China.” German Chancellor Angela Merkel (Angela Merkel) and even Boris Johnson (Boris Johnson) agree with this view to a certain extent. An angry official from an allied power described the British prime minister as “still hoping to get his cake and eat it in China”.

The G7 cannot avoid the reality that China’s cooperation is essential to combat climate change. What the leaders gathered in Cornwall tried to do was to provide leadership for global efforts. They announced an ambitious plan to shut down polluting coal-fired power stations as soon as possible—and protect 30% of the earth’s land and sea by 2030. The official gazette is inevitably lacking in details. But people still doubt that the actual steps to achieve these goals may not come soon.

After Cornwall, Biden’s next stop was the NATO summit in Brussels-then meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin. The G7 Bulletin states call Investigations into the use of chemical weapons on Russian territory — and condemning Russia’s tolerance of ransomware attacks launched from its territory. It is hoped that Putin will be impressed by the Western determination and unity shown by Cornwall and Brussels.

This year’s G7 summit did form a sharp contrast with the Trump era, when the US president seemed more keen on inciting differences with old allies than showing unity. Even Johnson, who is friendly to Trump, may be sincere when he describes Biden as a “breath of fresh air” for the Western alliance.

Putin — and Chinese President Xi Jinping — will notice that with Trump leaving the White House, the situation in the Western alliance has changed significantly. But will the leaders of Russia and China be intimidated or punished? Maybe not yet.

gideon.rachman@ft.com

Follow Gideon Rachman My FT And in Twitter



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