"The meeting was hastily organized without the members identifying what they wanted to achieve."
The vice to dominate is something oppressors cannot easily forget. The Group of 7 represents the richest countries in the world. If one is to ask how they became so rich while 90 percent of humanity continues to wallow in poverty, this club of filthy rich could not probably answer. And, if we are to excavate the past using the old ideological diatribe of their global pillage, conquest through colonialism and imperialism, many may think G-7 is still living in the past.
Today, man remains saddled with the age-old problems of hunger, poverty, unemployment, and disease although the scale has proportionately increased alongside with the strides in progress such as the pandemic we are now reeling, climate change that is rapidly melting our ice caps, the threat of war brought about by the imposition of economic embargo and sanction, the ambitious race to construct infrastructure, hoping to outdo China’s Belt and Road Initiative in a bid to restore the international order in its favor.
The G-7 meeting was hastily organized without the members identifying what they wanted to achieve. The US is competing against Russia and China using its economic ties with G-7 viz. alliance with NATO, to solidify its hold on the Western bloc. Many are confused whether Biden has his focus on Russia while half his feet deeply mired in the South China Sea unable to understand what he wants from that country.
Surprisingly, the US president focused his attention on UK’s Prime Minister Boris Johnson, urging the UK to return to the EU for a stronger European solidarity. The suggestion that was seconded by French President Emmanuel Macron touched the nerve of Johnson, insisting that Northern Ireland remains part of the United Kingdom. For Johnson to accede could lead to the downfall of the Tory government exposing the artificial solidarity of G-7 and invariably of the EU.
It seems there is more in the club a seething contradiction among themselves, and this is exacerbated by the US which cannot give a definitive assessment of Russia as a threat to European security. Some believe the US is getting indigestion due to overwhelming problems confronting it both domestically and abroad. G-7 is at a loss because among themselves, they do not know how to tackle the problem based on their strategic interests.
Notably, Germany’s interest is strategic, much that Nord Stream 2 could supply Germany with cheap natural gas from Russia bypassing Ukraine. The threat of spoiling Nord Stream 2 could spill to cause a breakage in the North Atlantic alliance and even among the G-7 club members. Germany’s posturing against China is understandable considering it is the biggest trading EU partner and sells more cars in China than in Germany itself.
The same can be said of Japan’s dealing with China. Every time the US suffers a slide in its economy, it readily finds a scapegoat to escape the ire from its own incompetence. For years, the US has projected itself as superior and invincible and its ideology about democracy and freedom sacrosanct to any other political beliefs. The racial slur against countries whose rise is seen as co-existential to its economic dominance is punished with all sorts of economic sanctions in violation of the international trade rules.
The hysteria orchestrated against Japanese-made cars in the 1980s saw the commission of vandalism, and the muzzling of its currency to offset the huge trade deficit. That resulted in a decade-long recession that lingers on to this day. Trump applied the wrong formula of imposing tariff that instead backfired to balloon its trade deficit.
The US is trying to apply the old strategy of wanting to browbeat its allies to give in to its demands. The US to this day could not delineate its relations with countries that pose a threat to its national security interest, or widen its relations in the spirit of multilateralism. The decision by Japan to join China’s expanded economic projects came as a shocker to G-7. Japan’s ratification of RCEP was as one of calculated assessment on what would serve Japan in the years to come. This was followed by South Korea that set aside its differences with Japan in favor of what will be good for their country.
US policy makers have never learned their lesson that economic interest will always predominate political alliance amplified by Germany’s decision to go ahead with the construction of Nord Stream 2. It was the transit fee imposed for the passage of natural gas through Ukraine that caused the disaster, that today the country which the US instigated to be on its side stands as a pauper in the elitist club.
In a narrower perspective, the US is confronted with the same contradiction whether to give priority in rehabilitating its aging and crumbling infrastructure just to compete with China with its grandiose plan dubbed as Build Back Better World (B3W) plan. It has become an indefatigable obsession to outdo what China is doing; to promise the world what it can do when its cities are being transformed to slums and dwelling for thousands of homeless Americans.
As China wryly commented, gone are the days when a small group of leaders decided the fate of the people on this planet. China was prompted to give its observation because obviously, it has a population of 1.4 billion while India has 1.333 billion, Brazil 211 million, Russia 144.4 million, and Indonesia 270.6 million. Altogether, China represents nearly 50 percent of the world’s population, but is unrepresented in the G-7.
President Joe Biden now talks loudly that America is back but has never spelled out how he intends to do it. He wants to enthrall the world by wanting to donate one billion vials of COVID-19 vaccine while enjoining the members to contribute.
For the record, the US has contributed much less, indicating failure to subdue the pandemic. It has even been accused of politicizing the vaccine like endorsing their brand which turned out to be costly and produce dangerous side effects like myocardial infection and blood clotting. Nothing has been heard after the G-7 made that promise, precisely because there is no way they could match what China and Russia have done to donate millions of vaccines, mostly for free.
On climate change, G-7 merely included the subject as lip service. Only Germany, China, and other Scandinavian countries have their green projects like their solar and wind energy and allocated millions to implement them.
The confusion that now binds the US is its inability which countries should be treated as enemies. Lately, talks are rife that the US is trying to create a wedge between Russia and China. This is again nostalgia. US fear is not that Russia is about to gobble up NATO but of losing a continent where it could exercise its hegemonistic ambition. Losing Europe could deny it of its value and relevance as a superpower.
The remnants of the Cold War are still looking forward to seeing Russia and China clash as they did in 1962. The advisors of President Biden are now looking for the possibility of chinking the armor that binds the relation of the two Eurasian colossus catalyzed in their signing of the Strategic Partnership Agreement.
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