G7 Summit 2023: Focus on China’s “Economic Coercion” and Japan’s Growing Role on the Global Stage

The outside world has always been discussing that the G7 will touch the challenge of China. At the G7 Finance Ministers and Central Bank Governors meeting held prior to the leaders’ summit, U.S. Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen mentioned that the U.S. has been considering countermeasures against Beijing’s coercive economic policies imposed on other countries’ markets. system, and may receive coordination and assistance from other countries at the G7 leaders’ summit. She said China’s apparent “economic coercion” against Lithuania and Australia was of great concern.

According to the “Financial Times” report, they have obtained relevant documents drafted by the summit, saying that the hosts of the summit, Japan and the United States, both want to make “economic security” one of the main topics of the summit. And Yellen also said that Washington is completing a new foreign investment review mechanism for China. The new US investment restrictions will “narrow the scope” and target technologies that “clearly affect national security” and will be shared with other G7 members. Discuss informally accordingly.

Since 2023, Beijing has imposed a new round of sanctions on U.S. military manufacturers Lockheed Martin and Raytheon and several related customers, and has also launched an investigation into the U.S. chip giant Micron. And in March, it raided the Beijing office of U.S. due diligence company Mintz Group and detained five Chinese employees. At the end of April, the Shanghai office of Bain & Company, one of the four major consulting firms in the United States, was raided by the Chinese police and some documents were taken away. In addition, Beijing recently detained a senior executive of the Japanese company Astellas Pharma. It was also reported this week that Linkedin, a well-known job search platform affiliated to Microsoft Corporation of the United States, will shut down its business in China.

In addition, in mid-April, the G7 foreign ministers meeting was held in Nagano, Japan. Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida met with US Secretary of State Blinken and exchanged views on joint security work between the United States and Japan. At the same time, the Japanese Ministry of Foreign Affairs stated that the foreign ministers of the G7 countries all reiterated the peace and stability of the Taiwan Strait. importance, and believed that such a move would contribute to the security and prosperity of the international community.

In response to the G7’s remarks about China, on April 19, the Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs met Tsutomu Koizumi, chief minister of the Japanese embassy in China, and said that the G7 foreign ministers would express their strong dissatisfaction with the host country, Japan, on “negative moves related to China.” Solemn representations. According to the Financial Times, according to an assessment by China’s Ministry of Commerce, Xi Jinping’s regime is considering restricting Western access to key materials and technologies in the auto industry.

According to external analysis, according to Zhongnanhai’s tough foreign policy, it is expected that Beijing will not make any concessions on China or cross-strait issues in the G7 leaders’ summit statement, and will respond harshly at the same time.

Beijing has criticized and sent signals to the US-Japan cooperation, whether it was in the G7 or before, and Japan’s recent cooperation with South Korea with the assistance of the US. It also underscores Japan’s growing prominence in recent global politics.

East Asian affairs commentator Gearoid Reidy commented on Bloomberg on the eve of G7, saying that the speed of Japan’s change of prime minister made people not have much expectation for Kishida’s regime. Kishida’s former prime minister, Suga Yoshihide, took office less than a Resigned after a year.

But Reddy pointed to an unusual development in Japanese politics in recent months. Kishida managed to weather many turmoil and the plight of polls starting to collapse, and seized power through a series of diplomatic activities.

At present, Kishida’s current support rate has returned to the level before the attack and death of former Prime Minister Abe, and the Liberal Democratic Party performed well in local by-elections last month, consolidating its power within the party. In the past, the outside world believed that the G7 was originally a stage for him to bid farewell to the prime minister. This rumor has now changed: the G7 held in his hometown of Hiroshima has become an opportunity that Kishida may take advantage of. He may call an early election after a successful summit.

Reddy analyzed that Kishida’s advantage lies in diplomacy, because he came to power in the post-epidemic era, which just allowed him to show his talents. The lightning visit to Kiev in March this year was in stark contrast to Xi Jinping’s meeting with Putin during the same period. This month, Kishida embarked on a series of visits to the global south, the first by a Japanese leader to the region in nearly a decade.

Fumio Kishida is featured on the cover of this month’s Time magazine, which analyzes how Kishida is bringing Tokyo back to the international stage as a decision-maker in resolving conflicts around the world.

“Thanks in large part to the Biden administration’s increasingly assertive stance on China, Tokyo is gaining importance globally as Washington seeks allies to contain Beijing’s rise … with Japan at the heart of it,” Reddy said.