China can expect a ‘harder line’ from G7, Nato countries at summits

US officials predict Beijing will be named for the first time in the North Atlantic alliance’s policy framework
And G7 meeting of the world’s most developed economies is expected to discuss ‘unfair and coercive’ practices by China

Kinling Loin Beijing

Published: 10:38am, 23 Jun 2022

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G7 and Nato countries are expected to take a harder line on China following what they called “increasing” economic and security threats in the past year, US officials said ahead of back-to-back leadership meetings kicking off this weekend.

Senior officials from US President Joe Biden’s administration said discussion on China will loom large in the consecutive summits of the world’s most developed economies.

Biden will first attend the annual meeting of the Group of Seven most developed countries in Germany on Sunday, before heading to Spain for the Nato summit that begins on Wednesday.

The meetings take place against a backdrop of US efforts to bolster alliances and partnerships, taking aim at China in the form of the Quadrilateral Security Dialogue (Quad) – a security pact with Australia, Japan and India – and the introduction of the Indo-Pacific Economic Framework.

A senior administration official in Washington said China will be identified for the first time in Nato’s new strategic concept – a document that lays out the policy framework over the next decade for the security alliance, that is now expected to expand to a 32-member body with the addition of Finland and Sweden following the war in Ukraine.

“Russia obviously continues to be the most serious and immediate threat to the alliance. But the strategic concept will also address the multifaceted and longer term challenges posed by the PRC to Euro-Atlantic security,” the official said on Wednesday, referring to the official name of the People’s Republic of China.

“This will be the first time that this document has done that,” the official said, pointing out there was no mention of China at all in the Nato Security Concept last published in 2010.

The security alliance, founded in response to the Soviet Union at the beginning of the Cold War in 1949, has rarely seen Beijing as a serious security concern for its members, until it was first identified as having “security implications” and posing “challenges” at the 2019 summit.

Nato has played a central role in backing Ukraine with military help, ranging from providing heavy weapons and long-range systems to intelligence, since the Russian invasion in February.

Member countries have also voiced concerns over Beijing’s refusal to condemn Russia’s moves, while Beijing has blamed Nato for the war.

In an address to the BRICS forum – an association of emerging markets which includes Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa – in Beijing on Wednesday, Chinese President Xi Jinping lashed out against Western sanctions against Russia, which he said had “turned the global economy into a weapon”.

Xi Jinping takes aim at West over Russia sanctions

Another senior US administration official said China’s economic practices would also be brought under attention during the G7 summit.

“Last year marked an important watershed with respect to the G7 speaking for the first time to China’s unfair and coercive economic practices,” the official said.

“We expect that is going to be if anything, a bigger topic of conversation this time around, recognising the extent to which those practices have become even more aggressive and more prominent in terms of the world economy and the globe’s experience of it.” The official did not specify the issues.

In last year’s summit, the G7 reached consensus on the need for a shared approach on China’s “non-market economic practices”, accused China of abusing human rights in its Xinjiang region and called for Hong Kong to keep a high degree of autonomy.

China responded by accusing the G7 of forming a “small circle” and “arbitrarily interfering in China’s internal affairs”.