G7 leaders warn China, accusing it of ‘economic coercion’ world news
G7 leaders issued a veiled warning to China, accusing the country of “economic coercion”.
The group said Beijing is using the trade to bully other nations and on Saturday urged the rising superpower to “abide by international rules”.
Heads of state from the US, Japan, Germany, France, Great Britain, Italy and Canada met this week in Hiroshima, Japan for a three-day summit.
The countries discussed the need to “reduce over-dependence (on China) in their critical supply chains.”
However, their joint statement went on to stress that G7 policies “are not aimed at harming China, nor are we aiming at thwarting China’s economic progress and development.”
The leaders added that they wanted to continue working on “constructive and stable” relations.
China condemned the G7 for their comments and said it was “strongly dissatisfied” with the allegations against it.
The Foreign Ministry said: “The G7 insisted on manipulating, denigrating and attacking China-related issues.”
The war in Ukraine took center stage this year when President Volodymyr Zelenskyy arrived on a French government plane after a stopover in Saudi Arabia.
It was unclear up to the last minute whether the Ukrainian President would attend the summit.
He rushed to attend the meetings already started and met his world political colleagues, including Prime Minister Rishi Sunak, who greeted him with the words “You did it!”.
On Friday, the G7 pledged to “starve” Russia for the resources it needs for its war in Ukraine, but details of how they intend to do so beyond existing sanctions are unclear.
US President Joe Biden has told his allies he will allow Ukrainian pilots to train on US-made F-16 fighter jets.
This prompted Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Alexander Grushko to issue a warning to the West.
He told the Russian state news agency Tass: “We see that the western countries continue to cling to an escalation scenario that poses enormous risks for them.”
“We will definitely take it into account in the planning.” “We have all the necessary resources to achieve our goals.”
Contact our news team by emailing us at webnews@metro.co.uk.
For more stories like this, Check out our news page.