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China accuses G7 leaders of ‘small circle’ power politics after rebuke of Beijing
- Beijing says group ‘deliberately slandered’ the country and hits out at ‘political manipulation’
- Nations called for new probe into origins of Covid-19 and urged respect for human rights in Xinjiang and Hong Kong
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Beijing has lashed out at G7 leaders for what it described as “small circle” power politics after they called for a new investigation into the origins of the coronavirus pandemic and urged China to respect human rights and freedoms in Xinjiang and Hong Kong.
Hours after the Group of 7 summit ended in Cornwall, England on Sunday, the Chinese embassy in Britain said Beijing firmly opposed the nations’ joint communique, saying they had “deliberately slandered China”.
The embassy statement said the leading industrial democracies – Britain, Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan and the US – had “shown the world that they are engaging in small circle … power politics while deliberately creating confrontations and divisions”.
In what many see as the strongest rebuke of China since the Tiananmen Square crackdown more than three decades ago, the G7 leaders called on Beijing “to respect human rights and fundamental freedoms, especially in relation to Xinjiang and those rights, freedoms and high degree of autonomy for Hong Kong enshrined in the Sino-British Joint Declaration and the Basic Law”.
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The G7 nations also called for “a timely, transparent, expert-led and science-based WHO-convened phase 2 Covid-19 origins study including, as recommended by the experts’ report, in China”.
The Chinese embassy on Monday accused the G7 leaders of “political manipulation” over their support for a new Covid-19 inquiry – amid renewed calls to look into whether the virus leaked from a research laboratory in China – and over the Xinjiang region, where its alleged treatment of Uygur Muslims has led to sanctions and accusations of genocide.
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