The US is pressing the need for allies to coordinate against economic coercion, not just military threats, as Japan prepares to host top diplomats from the G7 nations amid heightened tensions with China.
“That coercion piece is important,” US Ambassador to Japan Rahm Emanuel said in an interview days before the ministerial meeting begins in the mountain resort of Karuizawa tomorrow. “It keeps the United States in the center of gravity, and helps our allies and alliance and our friends to know that we are in the game.”
China is set to be a key focus of discussions at the meeting, which is to lay the groundwork for a leaders’ summit in Hiroshima next month.
Photo: Reuters
Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida has invited a raft of guest leaders from Asia and beyond, including from South Africa and South Korea.
One person who was not invited was Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平), who has been on a diplomatic charm offensive of late in a bid to push for peace in Ukraine and attract more foreign investment to the world’s second-biggest economy following isolation due to COVID-19 restrictions.
Japan has put an emphasis on economic coercion and is aiming for outcomes by the leaders’ summit, people familiar with the deliberations said.
Meanwhile, US Representative Michael McCaul, who chairs the US House of Representatives Foreign Affairs Committee, has blasted Beijing for what he sees as an unjust pressure campaign.
“Coercion is core to China’s economic model,” McCaul said during a visit to Asia this month.
Xi last week hosted French President Emmanuel Macron, who was forced to defend comments to the media that Europe should not simply follow the US over Taiwan.
Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, who was to meet Xi in Beijing yesterday, this week called on BRICS nations to come up with an alternative to the US dollar in foreign trade.
The G7 is to look to refocus the discussion on Chinese economic coercion.
Trade ministers said in a statement earlier this month that they would seek ways to work together to counter coercion that “undermines economic security.”
While that statement did not mention China, it follows a campaign by the administration of US President Joe Biden to corral support from allies in reducing dependence on Beijing for key elements in supply chains, such as semiconductors.
Japan last month became the latest to announce restrictions on exports of some of its most advanced chip technology, following similar moves by the US and the Netherlands.
Emanuel said that China’s strategy on coercion was “part of a defense build-up” and not “some aberration.”
In an analysis on the topic distributed to media, he said that a long list of countries including Japan, the Philippines, South Korea and Australia had encountered coercion from China in the recent past.
The G7 and the US-led Indo-Pacific Economic Framework for Prosperity are potential forums for formalizing rules on how to deal with the issue, Emanuel said in the interview.
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