China’s role in providing assistance to Russia in its war against Ukraine and its “damaging overcapacity” in the production of cheap goods have come under attack from G7 leaders despite misgivings from Germany.
On the second day of the annual summit, held in Puglia under the Italian presidency, the United States brought home a 36-page statement. which condemned Chinese subsidies for products such as solar panels and electric cars that it said were causing “global repercussions, market distortions and harmful overcapacity…undermining our workers, industries and economic resilience and security.”
U.S. officials were unequivocal in identifying China as a major supplier of dual-use materials (those with civilian and military applications) to Russia that they said Beijing knew were being used against Ukraine. US officials identified “optics, nitrocellulose, microelectronics and the type of items that go directly into the production of weapons that are used not only in Ukraine but that represent a long-term threat to the security of Europe.”
US President Joe Biden, alongside his Ukrainian counterpart Volodymyr Zelenskiy, was direct about what he said was China’s role in arming Russia. Zelenskiy, by contrast, insisted that the Chinese leadership had promised him that they would not supply weapons to Moscow.
The United States, Japan and the EU (which attends G7 summits as an unofficial eighth partner) have expressed concerns about Beijing’s generous subsidies, especially in the green energy and technology sectors, which have resulted in goods unfairly cheap ones flood the global market. That overcapacity threatens Western companies struggling to compete, particularly in the growing green technology sector.
“We will confront China’s non-trade policies that are causing detrimental effects globally,” John Kirby, spokesman for the US National Security Council, told reporters before the summit.
A senior Chinese official, First Vice Premier Ding Xuexiang, will travel to Brussels next week to urge the EU to reconsider its plans to impose 38% tariffs on Chinese electric vehicles, on top of the 10% it already charges on all vehicles. automobile imports. . Germany had hoped the tariff could be reduced before it came into effect in early July.
The G7 consciously expanded its Friday meeting to welcome the global south, with the arrival of Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, UAE President Mohamed bin Zayed, Brazilian President , Luiz Inácio. Lula da Silva, and the president of Mauritania, Mohamed Ould Ghazouani. More than 20 world leaders were around the table to listen to a speech by Pope Francis on artificial intelligence.
Italian Prime Minister and G7 host Giorgia Meloni insisted she would never accept the West versus the rest narrative, arguing that the only way to confront collective challenges was through cooperation.
Russia, facing broader secondary sanctions, loss of control of its state assets and a new 10-year security pact between the United States and Ukraine, has emerged as the summit’s big loser. A plan announced at the start of the summit for a $50bn (£39.4bn) loan to Ukraine, raised from interest earnings on Russian state assets, is intended to be just the start of a contraction of the Russian economy.
The final statement says Russia must end its illegal war of aggression and pay for the damage it has caused to Ukraine, which, according to the World Bank, exceeds $486 billion. “Russia’s obligations under international law to pay for the harm it is causing are clear and we therefore continue to consider all possible legal avenues through which Russia is forced to meet those obligations,” the text says. .
Russia has dismissed the US-Ukraine security deal as mere “pieces of paper” and derided the appropriation of profits from its frozen assets as theft.
Although Zelenskiy has been holding back on China, he urged Modi in a bilateral meeting on the sidelines of the summit to review India’s dependence on Russian oil, especially as the price of these purchases is rising, giving Russia ever-increasing revenues. .
The US and EU have imposed a price cap of $60 (£47) a barrel on Russian oil sales, meaning Western shippers and insurers can only participate in Russian trade if oil sells below of the price limit. The statement calls for stricter enforcement of the limit, including action against the Russian “shadow fleet” transporting oil above the limit.
India has never been a party to this export ban, but the United States, concerned about a spike in oil prices in an election year, has been reluctant to put too much pressure on Modi. India became the biggest buyer of seaborne Russian crude, ahead of China and Turkey, after European refiners suspended imports.
