THE G7’s top diplomats began talks in Japan today, looking to project a unified message on concerns about China after controversial remarks by French President Emmanuel Macron.

The foreign ministers are keen to move past the firestorm created by Macron’s assertion, following a trip to Beijing, that Europe should avoid “crises that aren’t ours”, and China was on the agenda even before official talks kicked off this morning.

After arriving at the mountain resort town of Karuizawa on a special bullet train, the group held a working dinner on China and North Korea, with Japan’s Foreign Minister Yoshimasa Hayashi telling his counterparts “the unity of the G7 is extremely important”.

Today’s first session again focused on China and regional challenges, and Hayashi opened talks by warning the international community is “at history’s turning point”.

He urged counterparts to “demonstrate to the world the G7’s strong determination” to defend “international order based on the rule of law”.

Host Japan wants regional challenges atop the agenda, and recent events including Chinese military drills around Taiwan and North Korean missile tests have sharpened that focus.

As the ministers began talks, the US navy announced it sailed a guided-missile destroyer through the Taiwan Strait in a freedom-of-navigation operation, with Beijing saying it had tracked the vessel.

The controversy over Macron’s remarks will prompt closer scrutiny of whatever language a final statement uses on China and its threats to seize self-ruled Taiwan.

Trips to Beijing by Macron and other G7 officials “will be a topic of discussion”, a senior US official said yesterday, speaking on condition of anonymity.

“I think there will be discussion of how we can continue to be fully aligned on a common and concerted approach.”

The bloc’s officials have been keen to avoid pouring more fuel on the fire, and French Foreign Minister Catherine Colonna has insisted there is no change of policy on China and Taiwan.

Striking a balance

Still, for all the outward expressions of unity, Macron’s comments reflect the fact there are real differences among the allies, said Jacques deLisle, director of the Asia programme at the Foreign Policy Research Institute in Philadelphia.

“Europe’s assessments of China and views of Taiwan have moved toward positions the US has favoured, but this has not brought consensus,” he said.

“Washington’s views of China have become still more negative and, relatedly, signals of support for Taiwan have grown much stronger, maintaining a gap between European and American positions.”

Even within Europe, there are differing views on the right balance between criticising and engaging with China, with the European Union’s top diplomat Josep Borrell warning against “counterproductive” measures.

“China has become increasingly assertive… but we have to continue engaging with China, looking for solutions to global challenges,” he told reporters yesterday.

“We have to continue trading with China,” said Borrell, who is not in Japan as he has Covid-19.

To do otherwise “would be counterproductive and create a vacuum that someone else would be filling, and we would lose economic leverage in China”.

Washington and Tokyo have both sounded the alarm on “economic coercion” by Beijing, and a final statement to be issued tomorrow is likely to call for more action on diversifying supply chains for sensitive items such as semiconductors.

The diplomats – from Japan, the United States, Britain, Canada, France, the EU, Italy and Germany – turned to Ukraine in the day’s second session, agreeing to reinforce “coordination to prevent and respond to evasion of sanctions as well as third-party weapon supply to Russia”.

Japan has stepped up security for the meeting after an explosive was thrown towards Prime Minister Fumio Kishida during a campaign event on Saturday. A bang and a cloud of smoke disrupted the event, but Kishida was unharmed.

Hayashi, meanwhile, has tried to keep the tone at the G7 meet light.

Yesterday was the birthday of both the US and French foreign ministers, and the group was presented with apple pie made by a Karuizawa hotel said to have been popular with John Lennon. – AFP, April 17, 2023.