Being held in-person for the first time since the outbreak of COVID-19, the most recent G7 summit is highly praised thanks to its comprehensive agenda which covers most of pressing issues for Western countries. Indeed, this summit is vital for the Group of Seven and the West in general to reform their plagued system. Nonetheless, it is over-optimistic to solely hinge on the Cornwall’s success to believe in the West’s revival. Instead, it behooves the G7 and Western countries to come up with more substantive agenda and actions.
To begin with, the G7 Summit necessitates a more united front against China. Given its rise and increasing global influence in recent years, China is undoubtedly the greatest threat to Western democracies. Taking this into account, all G7 leaders in the most recent summit reached a consensus on how to deal with China. More importantly, the bloc “took its most forceful stand in decades” to condemn China on issues ranging from COVID-19 to human rights, illustrating a clear awareness of existential threats from Beijing. However, this is insufficient to contain China effectively. There is still a divergence among seven countries on their view and approach to China-related problems. For example, regarding how aggressively to address China’s violation, the US, UK, Japan and Canada urged for a more hardline stance towards China, while France and Germany called for a cautious approach. Additionally, although all G7 leaders agreed on pushing against China and autocracies generally, they have not reached agreement yet on a common foreign policy agenda. These differences will hinder the progress of forming an ally against Beijing, not to mention containing the emergence of global autocracy. To this extent, based on what the G7 Summit has proposed, the bloc must cooperate further to develop a foreign policy agenda with specific keypoints and actions in order to form a tighter coalition.
Secondly, after the Cornwall Summit, G7 leaders should engage more with the developing world. Despite consisting of more than 40% of the global GDP, these seven countries are unable to rule and reform the international system on their own, due to the emergence of middle powers. These developing states are becoming more economically and geopolitically critical, given their rising position in the global order. Middle powers like Brazil, South Africa or Mexico, to name a few, are economically indispensable, evidenced by their contribution to the global economy. Moreover, developing economies such as Vietnam, India or Indonesia are also attractive destinations for Western firms in the midst of disrupted global supply chain caused by COVID-19 and the gradual decoupling from China, thanks to their abundant human resources and raw materials. G7 leaders thus should cooperate more closely, especially in terms of economics with third-world countries to reform the currently plagued international economic order.
G7 countries should not only forge economic relations but also facilitate political cooperation with the Global South. During the competition between China and the US, more broadly the West, developing countries play a geopolitically important role for both sides. This is the case for China, when Beijing has launched its Belt and Road Initiatives (BRI) since 2013, with the goal of extending its sphere of influence in developing countries from Asia, Africa to South America via numerous grand projects funded by Chinese private companies or government. Therefore, it is imperative for G7 countries to unite and have a counter-balance instrument to this grand political-economic project. G7 leaders have unveiled a multibillion dollar infrastructure initiative for low-income nations called “Build Back Better World” (B3W). This project aims to “help narrow the $40+ trillion infrastructure need in the developing world, which has been exacerbated by the COVID-19 pandemic”, and ultimately to compete with China’s BRI. Notwithstanding this “benign” ambition, G7 nations are unable to succeed without support from developing countries. Under this circumstance, G7 countries should proactively seek to deepen their partnership with the third world, both bilaterally and multilaterally. At present, the condition is even more conducive, as countries receiving money from the BRI are thinking twice given potential risks caused by BRI-funded projects, including but not limited to local corruption, environmental issues and unmanageable debt. Only when G7 states are fully supported by the Global South can they realise their grand initiative and prevent China’s political expansion.
Next, the Summit entails a stronger multilateral security cooperation, not just intra-bloc but extra-bloc one. This year all seven leaders have shown their cooperative spirit in jointly tackling global security issues in a multilateral way, which was absent during the Trump administration. Nevertheless, the summit ended without any clear steps for further collaboration among G7 nations to enhance the Western alliances in the communique. G7 leaders’ joint statement puts much emphasis on issues including climate change, healthcare and cybersecurity, but lacks attention on hard security issues like terrorism, maritime security or WMD. Along with non-traditional threats, traditional security ones are worth putting effort and resources, implying that G7 leaders should closely coordinate to deliver comprehensive solutions afterwards. Indeed, many security flashpoints, especially in the Middle East and Indo-Pacific region, are posing great concern for the global security. In this respect, as global major powers, G7 nations must go further to what they have done in the Cornwall Summit.
It is also noteworthy that G7 leaders should enhance their security partnership with partners outside the bloc. G7 is a vanguard of Western democracies, and the group is doing well in reforming NATO, the biggest military alliance on the planet. However, nowadays, NATO alone is not enough to handle global security issues. G7 nations thus have to seek cooperation in other regions, most importantly Asia. China has been increasingly aggressive in this region, and it will be even more assertive in the future. To contain China, Asian allies are critical, as they both share the same concern on Chinese threats and seek major powers’ regional engagement. But G7 nations have yet actively engaged in Asia. The US, despite being still a dominant actor, has been in relative decline since the Trump’s administration due to its isolationist policy. Currently, although Biden is looking to restore Asian allies, he is still focusing on solving domestic problems, which raises a question about Washington’s timely commitment in Asia. In addition, other G7 major military powers, such as the UK, France or Germany have not deeply engaged with their Asian strategic partners yet, and they also rarely mentioned how to deepen these relations during their Summit. If the G7 powers do not foster their cooperation with both existing and potential Asian allies, say India, Japan, South Korea, Australia or ASEAN states like Indonesia, Vietnam, the Phillippines, they will make a strategic mistake of letting China free to rise, posing a great threat to the regional stability and, to a further extent, the global rule-based order.
At a micro level, G7 leaders must work with different actors in different sectors, not limited to state. Realms like trade, environment and infrastructure require multi-actor cooperation, as there are a variety of stakeholders from state to MNCs and NGOs involved in these activities. One of the most remarkable aggreements of the Summit is the 15-percent global minimum tax for multinational firms, expected to end the “race to the bottom” and create a better environment for international economic activities. This is welcome, but there are more things to do to realise this, including further negotiation with major firms. Apparently, the global minimum tax will substantially affect both governments and companies so they have to sit together and reach to convergence on how to implement the tax plan step-by-step without disrupting the global economy. This is also true with infrastructure development. A grand project like B3W not only needs top-down funding from governments or public sector but also bottom-up one of private firms. While governments are mainly in charge of envisaging portfolio for investment, private sector is vital in executing projects and consulting governments on how to come up with good plans. Because of their long-term feature and costliness, infrastructure projects require strong public-private partnerships in the recipient countries. That said, a close coordination between governments (local and donor ones) and responsible companies is a must to ensure the future of B3W grand initiative.
The most recent G7 Summit is a harbinger of Western democracy’s reinvigoration, showcased by some historical agreements on pressing issues mentioned previously. Regardless of this, there are more things for all seven leaders to do in the post-Summit period to turn what they have concurred into reality and fill cracks among them. The summit is basically successful, but key points are lacking, and so do solid next steps. What G7 must do now is leveraging the Summit’s successes into something practically meaningful for the future of the West.
Phuong Pham is a PhD student at the Department of Political Science, Duke University
Picture credit: Simon Dawson / No 10 Downing Street, Flickr