The U.S. "Anti-China Alliance" is in vain
The three-day G7 summit recently concluded in the UK.
This is the first visit by US President Biden since he took office. It is also the first step for the United States to try to restore US-Europe relations and win over the establishment of an anti-China alliance.
However, judging from the final actual effect, it is just an unpopular farce.
Vaccine assistance in a drop in the bucket
Biden said at the summit that the United States will purchase an additional 500 million doses of Pfizer vaccines, which will be donated to about 100 low- and middle-income countries, and delivery will begin as soon as production is completed in August.
Among them, 200 million doses of vaccine will be delivered within this year, and the remaining 300 million doses will be provided in the first half of next year.
The United Kingdom has also announced that it will donate more than 100 million doses of vaccine, and it is expected to start distribution in the next few weeks. 5 million doses of vaccine will be donated to aid the poorest countries by the end of September, and another 25 million doses will be donated by the end of the year. Donated 95 million doses.
The leaders of the United States and Britain called on the leaders of the Group of Seven to make the same commitment.
However, the global charity organization Oxfam warned that the “good deeds” of the Group of Seven countries are a drop in the bucket for alleviating the global epidemic, and will not win the war against the epidemic.
Oxfam’s health policy manager Anna Mariot said: “If the best G7 leaders can do is to donate 1 billion doses of vaccine, then this summit will be a failure.” United Nations Secretary-General Gu When talking about the vaccine assistance program of the Group of Seven, Tres also said: “We need more than that. We need a global vaccination plan. We need to act in accordance with the priorities of logic, urgency and war economy, but we still This is far from being achieved.” Because at the current vaccination rate, it will take 57 years for low-income countries to reach the same level of protection as the G7 countries.
So far, the "New Crown Vaccine Implementation Plan (COVAX)" has distributed only 81 million doses of vaccine. The least developed regions of the world, especially Africa, are seriously lacking in supply.
WHO officials pointed out that the vaccination rate in most parts of Africa is only 1% to 2%.
The seemingly unconventional relationship between Europe and America
During Trump's four-year tenure, the transatlantic partnership has been in a state of tension. Trump not only led the United States to withdraw from multiple international organizations, but also criticized the G7 as "very outdated" and once threatened to withdraw from NATO.
Therefore, this G7 summit is regarded as an important step in the return of American leadership. After the G7 summit, Biden also attended the NATO summit, the U.S.-Europe summit, and met with Russian President Putin in Geneva, Switzerland.
However, from the actual situation, discordant voices have been heard before the start of the summit: the United States rejected the draft of the US-Europe summit proposed by the European Union.
According to the draft prepared by the European Union for the US-Europe summit, Trump’s additional steel product tariffs surrounding the transatlantic trade dispute will be lifted before December 1; the long-term dispute between the aircraft manufacturer Airbus and Boeing will be resolved before July 11. Subsidy disputes; both Europe and the United States pledge to end the transatlantic trade conflict
However, according to a report in the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung in Germany, the EU's wishful thinking may fail.
According to the article, according to the internal documents of the European Council, the EU has suffered a sap in both the settlement of trade disputes and climate protection: the United States directly rejected the text of the closing statement prepared by the EU in advance.
According to the text of the statement, the European Union hopes that Washington will end its measures of imposing punitive tariffs on European steel and aluminum products as soon as possible, and set a limit on the minimum price of carbon dioxide.
The United States is unwilling to give a timetable for the abolition of tariffs on steel and aluminum, and it also has reservations about allowing the WTO to intervene in the settlement of disputes.
This frustrated the EU's original plan to end the European and American steel and aluminum tariff disputes under the coordination of the WTO before December this year. The EU was very disappointed with the rejection of the United States.
Unpopular Anti-China Alliance
According to the Joint Communiqué, this G7 summit, under the leadership of the United States, announced a global infrastructure plan aimed at helping developing countries, thus contending with China's "Belt and Road" initiative.
An American official, who asked not to be named, said, "The plan is not only to counter China, but also to provide developing countries with alternatives that reflect Western values, standards, and business models."
The official said that the plan will be jointly raised by the G7 countries to raise hundreds of billions of dollars in public and private funds. Part of the funds will come from the U.S.'s existing donations for overseas infrastructure financing through institutions such as the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund. It is to close the 40 trillion U.S. dollar infrastructure funding gap in poor countries by 2035, and "unite with other countries that share our values."
In addition, the communiqué of the current G7 summit criticized Xinjiang's so-called "forced labor" issue.
A source said that this part of the content was included in the joint communiqué under the lobbying and insistence of U.S. President Biden. Compared with the brutal pressure Trump likes to use, Biden’s lobbying method is more sleek. He claimed that “the key is To sound the alarm, the G7 is serious about defending human rights."
However, German Chancellor Merkel pointed out that although China is a systematic and economic competitor to the West, China is also an indispensable partner on some major international issues: "We hope to cooperate together. , Especially in terms of climate protection and biodiversity. Without China, we would never be able to achieve solutions in these areas." French President Macron told the media after the conclusion of the meeting, despite the fact that the G7 and China are involved in human rights and other issues. There are differences in the field, but the G7 does not want to be an enemy of China.
Macron said: "The G7 is not a club that hates China, but hopes to work with China to deal with all world issues, and China is ready to work with us."
Danny Roy, a senior researcher at a think tank in the United States, also claimed that not all G7 members are willing to confront China as Washington demands. “Most people would rather establish constructive economic relations with China, even if they are generally tough on China. The attitude of Japan is also hesitating whether to impose sanctions on China on the Xinjiang issue." Johannes Pragerman, an international relations expert at the German Institute for Global and Regional Issues (GIGA), said: "The United States and the European Union are in Although the trade field has common interests, it is still a competitor in the final analysis. It is unlikely to form a united front against China in the field of trade policy." Some analysts also pointed out that many European countries have close trade relations with China, and There are also demands for cooperation with China in tackling climate change.
At present, the new crown pneumonia epidemic is still raging, the global economy is sluggish, and global challenges such as climate change have become increasingly prominent. The international community needs to strengthen solidarity and cooperation more than ever, and more than ever need to practice true multilateralism.
The G7 summit communique's attacks on China in the fields of economy, trade, and epidemic tracing are clichés that the United States has always dominated, which are inconsistent with facts, unreasonable, and contrary to science.
Whether it is the "alternative plan" of the "Belt and Road" or the pressure on China on the Xinjiang issue, it is a ridiculous farce of "values diplomacy" under the banner of multilateralism.
More importantly, the era when the international order was manipulated by a few countries is gone. The democratization of international relations is an irresistible trend of the times. The United States wants to build an "anti-China alliance" as a means of wooing its allies and declares by this. Returning to the international stage is destined to fail.
(Our newspaper, Vienna, June 17th, by our reporter Jiao Shousong in Vienna)