The G7 Summit logo at the entrance to the International Media Center (IMC), ahead of the G7 Leaders’ Summit, on May 18, 2023 in Hiroshima, Japan (AFP/LUDOVIC MARIN)
The leaders of the G7 countries began arriving in the Japanese city of Hiroshima, a symbol of peace, on Thursday to discuss the strengthening of sanctions against Russia and measures to protect against “economic coercion” from China.
Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida is due to welcome the leaders of the six other major industrialized democracies from Friday to Sunday in this city marked by nuclear destruction in 1945 and today hosting many monuments for peace.
The leaders of the G7 member countries (United States, Japan, Germany, France, United Kingdom, Italy, Canada) will try to present a united front against Russia and China, but also on other strategic issues where their interests are not always perfectly aligned.
US President Joe Biden, who arrived in Japan on Thursday afternoon, was confronted even before his departure with a political crisis over the US debt, which forced him to cancel the following stages of his Asia-Pacific tour (Papua- New Guinea and Australia).
US President Joe Biden (l) and Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida (d) during a meeting ahead of the G7 summit on May 18, 2023 in Hiroshima (AFP/Brendan SMIALOWSKI)
The invasion of Ukraine launched by Russia 15 months ago will dominate the agenda, with “discussions about the state of the battlefield”, said US national security adviser Jake Sullivan.
The United States and its allies have increased arms shipments to Ukraine, whose President Volodymyr Zelensky is to attend the summit by videoconference.
– Nuclear disarmament –
According to Sullivan, the discussions should focus on the tightening of sanctions against Moscow that caused the Russian economy to shrink in the first quarter of 2023.
The US official said leaders would discuss tackling the circumvention of those sanctions, which allows Russian President Vladimir Putin to continue funding his war effort.
According to an official of the European Union, an organization that participates in the G7, the heads of state and government will also discuss sanctions against the Russian diamond trade.
“We believe that Russian exports in this sector should be limited,” the official said, declining to give a timetable and adding that the G7 was unlikely to reach a final agreement in Japan.
Mr. Putin’s repeated threats to turn the war in Ukraine into a nuclear conflict have been condemned without appeal by the leaders of the G7 and are seen by some observers as an attempt to shake the resolve of Europeans and Americans.
The atomic bomb dome at the Hiroshima Peace Memorial on May 18, 2023 in Japan (AFP/LUDOVIC MARIN)
The leaders’ planned visit to the Hiroshima Peace Memorial Park is expected to highlight these threats, where on Aug. 6, 1945, the city was largely destroyed by a US atomic bomb, killing 140,000 people.
Mr. Kishida, whose family is from Hiroshima and who is himself elected there, wishes to use this summit to encourage his guests, in particular the United Kingdom, France and the United States, which together have thousands of nuclear warheads, to commit to being transparent about their stockpiles and reducing their arsenals.
Many military and diplomatic leaders, including six former heads of state, also urged the nuclear powers on Wednesday to put aside tensions and negotiate arms control measures.
But amid heightened tensions with other nuclear powers Russia, North Korea and China, hopes for progress in this area are dim.
– “Economic coercion” –
The G7 should also devote a large part of its discussions to China, and in particular to the means of protecting itself from possible economic blackmail by Beijing, by diversifying production and supply chains, while the Chinese government is willing to use trade barriers.
World nuclear arsenal (AFP/)
For Mr. Sullivan, the leaders of the G7 should denounce this “economic coercion” and strive to overcome transatlantic differences on the position to adopt vis-à-vis China.
But European countries, particularly France and Germany, are keen to ensure that eliminating risk does not mean cutting ties with China, one of the world’s biggest markets.
It is “not an anti-Chinese G7”, insisted the Elysée before the summit, wishing “a positive message” of cooperation “provided that we negotiate together”.
Japan has also invited eight third-party countries, including major emerging economies such as India and Brazil, to Hiroshima in an attempt to rally some reluctant leaders to oppose Russia’s war in Ukraine and growing military ambitions. from Beijing.
© 2023 AFP
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