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The G7 Summit: Past, Present, and Future

18 Jun 2021
By Colin Chapman FAIIA
A family photo of G7 leaders and the invited guests at Carbis Bay. Source: 首相官邸ホームページ https://bit.ly/3iRkyea

The hot air generated by G7 leaders at the weekend talkfest arguably would have sustained a dozen soaring thermal balloons. But how far did G7 talks in Cornwall succeed in achieving the summit’s overblown aims?

The leaders set out to make progress in ending the COVID-19 pandemic, agree on real measures to combat climate change, confront the Chinese challenge and violation of human rights, and reduce world poverty. The world’s media, holed up in a barricaded media centre at the Maritime Museum in Falmouth, an hour’s drive from the Carbis Bay resort in England’s far south-west which was host to the G7 leaders, found it hard to make sense of the proceedings. There were limited and anodyne briefings, few photocalls, and the occasional report from selected broadcasters escorted to and from chosen seascapes.

Television news focused on shots of Carrie Johnson and baby Wilfred, aged one, with Jill Biden, paddling on a windswept beach. Boris Johnson nodded enthusiastically as President Joe Biden told him they were both fortunate to have married above their stations.  France’s President Emmanuel Macron strongly supported the Anglo-French accord while denouncing Johnson’s betrayal of the UK-EU trade deal in respect of Northern Ireland.

All this took place, of course, against a backdrop of battleships offshore at Carbis Bay, drones hovering overhead, and helicopters buzzing around.  As Boris Johnson took an uncharacteristic plunge into the Atlantic surf, more than 6,000 police guarded Carbis Bay.

It was not supposed to be like this. The first meeting of the world’s leading democracies took place in 1975 at the Chateau de Rambouillet near Fontainbleu, France.  It had been called by president Valery Giscard d’Estaing and German chancellor Helmut Schmidt and was designed to be a weekend of informal fireside chats, enabling the leaders of the world’s six richest democracies to get to know each other better.

The discussions were mainly about the global recession and rocketing inflation. I covered it as a newly appointed BBC economics correspondent. On the Sunday, most of the leaders went to church, while my crew and I stood outside with a small group of interested locals. Among them, I noticed two or three who wore berets but had ear pieces and talked in American accents. When Giscard, UK Prime Minister Harold Wilson, and President Gerard Ford emerged, flanked by his detail, the US president made a beeline for me, apparently to shake my hand.

“Bonjour monsieur,” he said in fractured French. “Good morning, Mr President, we’re from the BBC, have you agreed a target growth rate?” I asked. “Oh, oh,” he said. “Bonjour”.  So, no scoop there, but later that afternoon, Giscard came out to answer questions from the handful of reporters covering the event, stressing the start of a new era of cooperation.

It is the renewal of an era of cooperation that is the most significant – and perhaps the only real – achievement of last weekend’s G7. While France and Germany initiated the G6 over 40 years ago, it was Joe Biden who saved the meeting from the oblivion into which Donald Trump would have driven it. While Boris Johnson, ably assisted by his new wife, was this year’s host, it was Biden’s drive and determination that secured agreement on a new role for the world’s major democracies. He insisted on the creation of a properly funded concept to rival China’s Belt and Road infrastructure initiative, and took the initiative, with Boris Johnson’s support, to rewrite the Atlantic Charter.

Perhaps the most telling comment came from France’s Macron after his one-to-one meeting with Biden. “It is great to have a US president who is part of the club, and very willing to cooperate,” he said, reflecting on the great improvement in US-EU relations that had reached a nadir in the Trump presidency. These sentiments were amplified on Monday when Biden breathed new life into the NATO summit in Brussels.

As host of the G7, Johnson also made a significant contribution to the new era of cooperation by inviting three smaller democracies to join the G7 weekend, and to attend most of the sessions. They were Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison, South African President Cyril Ramaphosa, and President Moon Jae-in of South Korea. India’s leader was also invited, taking part by video link.

For Morrison, the trip was worthwhile. There had been misgivings among some officials that he would be wedged on climate change and “jawboned” into accepting targets or policies he is not yet ready to embrace. However, there was no open criticism of Australia apart from among the demonstrators and a report on the BBC. Morrison will be pleased with the Biden-led initiative on China, especially in view of  Beijing’s bullying tactics to which he and Canberra have been subjected.

The breath of fresh air in one of the longest communiques to emerge from a G7 meeting, is the plain language directed at Russia and China. It is worth quoting the demands made of Vladimir Putin’s Russia to:

stop its destabilising behaviour and malign activities, including its interference in other countries democratic systems, and to fulfil its international human rights obligations and commitments. In particular we call on Russia to urgently investigate and credibly explain the use of a chemical weapon on its soil, to end its systematic crackdown on independent civil society and media, and to identify, disrupt, and hold to account those within its borders who conduct ransomware attacks, abuse virtual currency to launder ransoms, and other cybercrimes.

The communique is less hard-hitting on China, but condemns Beijing for its treatment of minorities, its breach of freedoms promised in its agreement with the UK on Hong Kong, and its use of forced labor.  Many European leaders, including Johnson, Germany’s outgoing chancellor, Angela Merkel, and Italy’s Mario Draghi were less keen on confronting China than Biden or Morrison, and Johnson declined to mention China in his concluding news conference. Macron stressed G7 was not hostile to China and wanted to continue to work with Beijing on issues like climate change.

Biden gave his perspective slightly differently: “We’re in a contest, not with China per se, but with autocrats and autocratic governments around the world as to whether democracies can compete with them in a rapidly changing 21st century.”

Where the G7 fell short of expectations in terms of the lack of detail on prime issues such as tackling global COVID-19 and combating climate change. It had been flagged that there might be some agreement on precise further steps to be taken to accelerate progress, along with some realistic budget commitments both within the major democracies and for the desperately hard-hit developing countries. On COVID-19, the US and UK led the way with a promise of over a billion vaccines over the next year, but Oxfam described it in derisory terms as falling far short of Africa’s needs, let alone the world.

There was detail, however, on the initiative pushed by Biden to provide infrastructure funding for poor countries to counter China’s Belt and Road Initiative . Called “Build Back Better,” the plan will be crafted and costed by a G7 working party, focusing on climate change, health, digital technology, and gender inequality. The fund will challenge the billions of dollars provided by China for infrastructure investment in developing countries and operate based on the rule of law and democratic values.

Colin Chapman is a writer, broadcaster, and public speaker, who specialises in geopolitics, international economics, and global media issues. He is a former president of AIIA NSW and was appointed a fellow of the AIIA in 2017.

This article is published under a Creative Commons License and may be republished with attribution.