G-7 ministers achieve unity over China and Russia, but cracks lie on climate front

TOKYO – Japan kicked off its Group of Seven (G-7) presidency over the weekend with a show of unity by the bloc’s environment and foreign ministers, but questions remain over whether it will hold until the leaders’ powwow in Hiroshima in May.

There was clearly cause for concern. On the climate front, Japan is a holdout on coal. And on foreign policy, all eyes are on whether the G-7 can sing the same tune about Taiwan, given French President Emmanuel Macron’s recent courtship of his Chinese counterpart Xi Jinping.

While Japan regards a Taiwan contingency as a threat to its own survival, Mr Macron has said that Europe should not get “caught up in crises that are not ours”.

But for now, foreign ministers of the G-7, comprising the United States, Japan, Germany, Britain, France, Italy and Canada, have shown they are on the same page, signing off on a communique on Tuesday, in contrast with the Group of 20 gatherings thus far in India, where China and Russia also have seats at the table.

The communique criticised Russia’s threat to station nuclear weapons in its neighbour Belarus and China’s “unilateral attempts to change the status quo by force or coercion”.

Both Japan’s Foreign Minister Yoshimasa Hayashi and US Secretary of State Antony Blinken on Tuesday touted their “strength of solidarity” and “clear unanimity”, hoping to allay suspicions of any fissures within the bloc.

The document clearly rubbed China up the wrong way, with its assertions about “the importance of peace and stability across the Taiwan Strait” and warnings that there was “no legal basis for China’s expansive maritime claims in the South China Sea”.

Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Wang Wenbin told a regular news conference that the communique was a “gross interference” in internal affairs, “maliciously smearing” Beijing with statements that were “full of arrogance and prejudice”.

Dr Tosh Minohara, who chairs the Research Institute for Indo-Pacific Affairs think-tank, described the foreign ministers’ communique as “very, very forceful” and “tersely worded”.

“On the one hand, there’s more reason for Russia and China to approach each other,” he told The Straits Times. “But that was going to happen regardless. Still, voicing discontent is one thing; the question is how they are going to effectively act on it.”

Among other things, the statement said that there “can be no impunity for war crimes”, while describing Russia’s nuclear rhetoric as “irresponsible”.

In a veiled allusion to China, the G-7 added its resolve to “prevent and respond to third parties supplying weapons to Russia and continue to take actions against those who materially support Russia’s war against Ukraine”.

On Sunday, US-sanctioned Chinese Defence Minister Li Shangfu met Russian President Vladimir Putin in Moscow, where he told Mr Putin that trust between their militaries “has been increasingly consolidated”.

Still, the G-7 ministers did not slam the door shut against China, noting in the communique a need for candid exchanges and cooperation on global challenges such as climate change.

Dr Stephen Nagy of the International Christian University in Tokyo told ST that the ball is in China’s court to ensure a safe space for open and frank discourse with the West at all levels, from politicians to the grassroots.

But he stressed: “The West must, at the same time, reciprocate by having more nuanced discussions about how to manage this relationship.”

The 24-part communique clearly showed Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida’s priorities, said Dr Heng Yee Kuang of The University of Tokyo. The Indo-Pacific followed the war in Ukraine as the statement’s top items, ahead of China, North Korea and Myanmar.

“This reflects Mr Kishida’s oft-made point that security in the Euro-Atlantic is indivisible from the Indo-Pacific,” he said.

That the Indo-Pacific was front and centre of the communique was a diplomatic win for Japan, according to experts. They cited a growing recognition, even in Europe, of the region as the nexus of the global economy and geopolitical risks.

In that regard, Dr Nagy said, the communique’s reaffirmation of Asean centrality while also highlighting the conflict in Myanmar, indicated that the G-7 saw a stable Myanmar as essential to the healthy functioning of the South-east Asian bloc.

Dr Satoru Nagao, a non-resident fellow of the Hudson Institute think-tank, noted that the ministers had underscored the importance of cooperating with India in their session on the Indo-Pacific, reflecting the growing importance of the Global South.

This includes such regions as the Pacific Islands, Africa, Latin America and the Caribbean – all of which have in recent years been susceptible to Chinese influence. Dr Nagao saw this as a message that these regions are not being ignored by the G-7.

Still, even as experts cheered the foreign ministers’ statement, observers pointed to gaps on the climate front. The environment ministers’ communique on Sunday had failed to commit to a timeline for the abolition of coal-fired power generation, given Japan’s reluctance for one.

But Japan, too, had to compromise. While Tokyo had wanted to say that investment in hydrogen and ammonia technology powered by fossil fuels was “necessary” so long as projects were consistent with greenhouse gas reduction targets, the eventual word used was “appropriate”.

Japan also did not win explicit backing for its upcoming plan to release treated water from the crippled Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant into the Pacific Ocean. 

Rather than the ministers saying that they “welcome” the plan, the statement instead said that the G-7 “supports” an independent review by the International Atomic Energy Agency to ensure it was consistent with international standards.