By Prof. Engr. Zamir Ahmed Awan
The G7 group of rich and democratic countries, namely Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, UK, and US, gathered in Cornwall (UK) for “The G-7 Leaders’ Summit 2021”, from June 11 to 13. The meeting was presided over by the UK and aimed at uniting the world’s leading democracies to help the world build back better.
The G7 countries announced a new initiate the “Build Back Better World” (B3W) partnership “a values-driven, high-standard, and transparent infrastructure partnership led by the world’s richest democratic nations to help the developing world which has been exacerbated by the COVID-19 pandemic”. G-7 has given an assurance to invest up to $40 trillion by 2035 to plug the infrastructure gap in low and middle-income countries all around the world. Through B3W, all partner countries will coordinate in four prioritized areas of focus viz. climate, health and health security, digital technology, and gender equity and equality with the help of financial institutions. As far as the scope of B3W is concerned, its scope is global, such as from Latin America and the Caribbean to Africa to the “Indo-Pacific”.
Moreover, US President Joe Biden’s first and foremost reason behind meeting the G-7 leaders was to discuss the strategic competition with China as well as taking their commitment for concrete actions against Beijing. According to US President Joe Biden, the G-7 countries’ B3W partnership offered an alternative to China’s Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), and the B3W plan would be greener and more inclusive. Furthermore, it will endorse and brand new vision for funding infrastructure projects in developing countries. The new frontier of rivalry between the US and China is started by Washington through championing the Build Back Better World (B3W) partnership along with six other rich countries of the world. Meanwhile, G-7 member countries attempt to rival China with an infrastructure project. In this regard, during the G-7 Summit, American President Joe Biden urged G7 nations to compete economically with China and emphasized the need to counter the authoritarian threats from Beijing. It was obvious that the agenda of President Joe Biden was ganging up against China and convincing other members of G-7 to support the US initiatives and collectively contain China.
However, the differences among G-7 are natural, as each country has different interests. They may not coincide with the US and may not agree on the anti-China stance proposed by President Joe Bidden. China has become a more important trading partner with some G-7 members and has emerged as a vital foreign investor in a few of the G-7 countries. G-7 understands the potential of China and the limitations of the US too.
While on the other hand, China has responded and criticized G-7 plans to create a green belt and road plan to counter China’s influence. Beijing explained that the days are gone when global decisions were dictated by a small group of countries. Furthermore, it says such doubts betray the “imperial hangover” of many Western powers that humiliated China as well as other countries for centuries. It is worth mentioning that all members of G-7 are under heavy foreign debts and lacking the capital to launch any mega initiative. Furthermore, G-7 countries have no capacity, no experience, nor sincerity to develop other countries. Whereas, China has an excessive amount of money, capacity as well as sincerity to develop the whole world, especially the developing and underdeveloped nations. BRI is a proven success story of China and unmatched with any other initiatives in human history like Marshal Program etc.
The US is going to use the G-7 nations against China, but the result of this block will not only prove harmful for Washington but also for other G-7 nations which are the partners in this scheme.
In this regard, these countries have to ponder over such strategies of the US where it only follows its interest at the expense of other nations. In addition, through the period because of the bad policies of the US, it has lost its credibility, particularly in developing countries, in this regard, no one is going to trust whatever plans Washington offers.
Meanwhile, the recent B3W game is played at the hands of America because it has been trying to counter and contain China for a long time but has failed at each strategy against rising China. The US has announced and adopted multiple policies and actions to counter China to save its dominant status. But the failure of the policies and actions proved that those were built up upon false, biased, and treacherous intentions. There are multiple factors behind the failure of Washington’s policies and actions against Beijing in which lack of originality, credibility, and authenticity is one of the top factors. Initially, the US tries its best to counter and rival China on its own by introducing various policies such as the US containment policy of China, Quadrilateral Security Dialogue (QSD or Quad), and President Biden’s policy of dubbing China as a strategic rival. All these policies were aimed at countering China, but when it failed in all strategies, now it wants the powerful nations to side with it for countering Beijing together. In this regard, as a result of American propaganda against China, Beijing needs to counter this block through engaging, cooperating as well as making new blocks with countries such as Russia, Iran, Turkey, Pakistan, and some Middle Eastern and African nations. Chinese diplomacy is strong and effective.
Those who joined BRI are beneficiary already, who opposes BRI may repent in near future. China has already surpassed the threshold stage, where the US can contain, coerce and dictate to China.
Author: Prof. Engr. Zamir Ahmed Awan – Sinologist (ex-Diplomat), Editor, Analyst, Non-Resident Fellow of CCG (Center for China and Globalization), National University of Sciences and Technology (NUST), Islamabad, Pakistan.
(This is an opinion article. The views expressed belong only to the author and the publication of the article does not necessarily imply the endorsement of its content by World Geostrategic Insights).
Image Credit: Brendan Smialowski/AFP