It is an oddity that the Group of Seven (G-7) of the world’s most industrialised economies does not include China, given its centrality to the global economy. Lately, it even looks as though excluding China is the raison d’etre of this forum, which groups the United States, Japan, Germany, France, Italy, United Kingdom and Canada, with the European Union as an invited permanent participant. Last week’s G-7 foreign ministers’ meeting hosted by Japan, however, had also much to do with papering over cracks in the edifice, evidenced by French President Emmanuel Macron’s recent distancing from the US approach to Taiwan.

The G-7 was once focused on countering the Soviet Union. Following the Soviet collapse, Russia participated in the forum from 1998 to 2014, before it was suspended for annexing Crimea. Today, worry about China predominates, with the emerging Beijing-Moscow nexus also under watch. Disappointingly for all whose principal concerns are human survival issues such as climate change, food security and disaster mitigation, such matters seem to have been overwhelmed by geopolitics at the recent meeting, judging by where they figure in the 24-point final communique.