Since his election as President of the United States, Joe Biden has lost no opportunity to announce that “America is back”. The underlying message of the recently concluded G7 summit in Cornwall could be summed up as “the west is back”. The purpose of the assembled leaders was to show unity, purpose and leadership in solving the world’s problems – and to reach out to the rest of the world.
It was the first summit meeting of the G7 countries – the United States, Japan, the United Kingdom, France, Germany, Canada and Italy – since the outbreak of the pandemic and the defeat of Donald Trump. But, as the leaders gathered in Cornwall displayed a lot of ambition, the summit leaves behind big questions as to whether the delivery of the G7 will match its rhetoric.
This issue of delivery hangs over many of the major topics discussed by the G7, including vaccines, climate and efforts to create an international infrastructure to compete with China’s Belt and Road Initiative.
On vaccines, the G7 has promised to deliver one billion doses to the developing world in one year. But this impressive number may still be too small and too late. The World Health Organization has mentionned the world needs 11 billion doses of vaccines to effectively fight Covid-19. And a deployment that can take 18 months will mean many more deaths – and a long time for new vaccine-resistant strains of the virus to develop.
Competition with China has been the underlying theme for much of the G7 summit. But the Chinese government will likely promise more vaccines to the rest of the world than the G7. However, doubts about the efficiency Chinese vaccines can mean it’s a mixed blessing.
The G7’s determination to push back China’s growing global influence was most evident in the group’s support for a Western alternative to China’s Belt and Road Initiative to build infrastructure in the developing world. The idea is that the Option G7 provide higher environmental standards and more transparency on lending and governance.
But it is also likely to offer much less money – a point on which the G7 communiqué becomes notably vague. Meanwhile, Chinese banks and companies are already working hard on flagship projects around the world, like building a new capital of Egypt.
Beyond the announcements and headlines, the deeper question arises as to how united the Western world truly is in its determination to oppose Chinese influence. Even on the fringes of the G7, it was evident that the language used by the United States and Japan was significantly stronger than the rhetoric of the Europeans.
The four nations invited to join the G7 in Cornwall – particularly India and Australia – are clearly important to any effort to organize the democratic world to take on China. But speaking just before the G7 summit, Emmanuel Macron, the President of France, stress the need for Europe to maintain its “independence with regard to our strategy vis-à-vis China”. This sentiment would be shared by Angela Merkel, the German Chancellor, and even, to some extent, by Boris Johnson. The British Prime Minister is described by an exasperated official, of an allied nation, as “always wanting to have his cake and eat it on China”.
The G7 cannot avoid the reality that Chinese cooperation is essential to tackle climate change. What the assembled leaders attempted to do in Cornwall was lead the global effort. They announced ambitious plans to shut down polluting coal-fired power plants as soon as possible – and to protect 30% of the planet’s land and oceans by 2030. The official statement was inevitably a little light on the details. But the suspicion remains that practical steps to achieve these goals may not be forthcoming.
After Cornwall, Biden’s next stop is a NATO summit in Brussels, followed by a meeting with Vladimir Putin, President of Russia. The G7 press release underlined calling for an investigation into the use of chemical weapons on Russian soil – as well as condemnation of Russia’s tolerance for ransomware attacks launched from its soil. The hope is that Putin will be impressed by the displays of Western determination and unity being deployed in Cornwall and Brussels.
This year’s G7 summit certainly made a stark contrast to the Trump years, when the US president seemed far more inclined to stir up divisions with old allies than to display unity. Even Johnson, a friend of Trump’s, was probably sincere when he described Biden as a “breath of fresh air” for the Western alliance.
Putin – along with Chinese President Xi Jinping – will take note that things have clearly changed in the Western alliance, with Trump leaving the White House. But will the Russian and Chinese leaders be intimidated or punished? Maybe not yet.
