The US and five of its allies on Friday condemned the use of trade practices that amount to economic coercion in a joint declaration that did not single out other countries, but appeared to be aimed at China.
Australia, Canada, Japan, New Zealand and the UK jointly released the statement with the US, saying that “trade-related economic coercion and non-market-oriented policies and practices” threatened the multilateral trading system and “harms relations between countries.”
The statement comes after G7 leaders last month agreed to an initiative to counter economic coercion and pledged action to ensure that any actors attempting to weaponize economic dependence would fail and face consequences.
Photo: Reuters
Canada, Japan, the UK and the US are also members of the G7.
The countries expressed concern about “pervasive subsidization,” anti-competitive practices by state-owned enterprises, forced technology transfer and government interference with corporate decisionmaking.
Washington has regularly raised such concerns about trade practices by Beijing, and an official from the Office of the US Trade Representative, who spoke to reporters about the joint declaration, cited China for imposing a ban on imports from Lithuania after it allowed Taiwan to open a de facto embassy.
China suspended imports of beef, dairy and beer from Lithuania last year.
Beijing last month protested the G7’s declarations, including on economic coercion, saying that the US was “pushing hard to weave an anti-China net in the Western world.”
In their joint statement, the US and its five allies raised concerns about forced labor.
“We are also seriously concerned about the use of forced labor, including state-sponsored forced labor, in global supply chains,” they said.
“All forms of forced labor are gross abuses of human rights, as well as economic issues, and it is a moral imperative to end these practices,” they added.
Separately, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken would travel to China next week, rescheduling a visit that was canceled in February after a saga over a suspected surveillance balloon, US officials said on Friday.
Blinken is expected to arrive in Beijing on Sunday next week, the first trip by a top US diplomat to China since then-US secretary of state Mike Pompeo in October 2018, US officials said on condition of anonymity.
The US Department of State has not officially announced his travel.
US National Security Council spokesman John Kirby recently said that the US would announce travel by senior officials “in the near future,” without giving details.
US President Joe Biden and Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) met in Bali in November last year and agreed to prevent tensions from soaring out of control, including by sending Blinken to Beijing.
Blinken abruptly canceled a trip scheduled in early February after the US said that it detected — and later shot down — a Chinese surveillance balloon flying over the US mainland, drawing fury from US lawmakers and denials by Beijing.
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