GUEST COMMENTARY by Banura Nandathilake
Despite being an informal collective of ‘advanced economic’ liberal democratic states, the Group of 7 (G7) bringing together Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan and the United Kingdom and the United States have fervent goals. Held from 26 to 28 June 2022, the summit was in response to a global society capsized by division and shocks, as a call to unite and join to defend ‘universal human rights and democratic values, the rules-based multilateral order, and the resilience of democratic societies’ (G7, 2022). The viability of such remains to be seen.
Formed in 1975, leading states in a world of global economic recession induced by the OPEC oil embargo understood it may be in their mutual interest to coordinate on macroeconomic interdependencies. While it was first a forum for Finance ministers to hold annual meetings, the G7 developed into a round-table between leaders of the Western World. In 1988, Russia joined the G7, which was then named the G8 albeit temporarily until Russia’s dismissal for its annexation of Crimea from Ukraine.
The G7 states in the contemporary, with an aggregate that represents 45 percent of the global economy in nominal terms and 10% of the world’s population, hold annual summits to coordinate economic policy goals, facilitate collective action on transnational issues and propagate neo liberal norms, in conjunction with the European Union and other invitees. All 7 member states are identified as mature and advanced democracies with a Human Development Index score of 0.800 or higher.
Unlike international organisations and groups such as NATO, the G7 group has no formal legal existence, no permanent secretariat or official members. It thus has no legally binding rules that abide by or ratify states to uphold decisions and commitments made at G7 meetings. As such, while compliance with G7 norms is procedurally voluntary, they are impacted by social norms of persuasion, influence, mutual accountability and reputation. Topics of conversation between member states have encompassed growing challenges such as counterterrorism, development, education, health, human rights and climate change.
The 2022 Summit
From
26-28 June 2022, the leaders of G7 States met in Elmau, Germany joined by the
leaders of Argentina, India, Indonesia, Senegal and South Africa, as well as
Ukraine. Representatives included German Chancellor Olaf Scholz, Italian Prime
Minister Mario Draghi, US President Joe Biden, British Prime Minister Boris
Johnson, Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, Japanese Prime Minister Fumio
Kishida, French President Emmanuel Macron, European Council President Charles
Michel and European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen,
The
summit focused on the Covid-19 crisis, climate change, the Russian Ukrainian
conflict, and China.
Climate Change
The
shared concerns of climate change were a major topic of discussion during the
2022 Summit. The group endorsed the goals of an open and cooperative
international Climate Club, in alignment with the 1.5°C pathways and hastened
the implementation of the Paris agreement. The group further pledged to commit
to a decarbonised transportation sector by 2030, a fully or predominantly
decarbonised power sector by 2035. However, the latter may have been
incentivised by political concerns of Western states to a major degree.
Liberal Democracies of the West
Liberal
democracies may be understood to exist where the state subscribes to a liberal
economic system and a democratic political system. A concise summary of such is
as a liberal economic system proscribes significant political control over an
decentralised, capitalistic, market driven economic system, as it is understood
that the market mechanism is the most efficient means of linking demand to
supply, market to consumer. A democracy may be understood as a domestic
political model which, in conjunction with an impartial judiciary, free media
and others, elected representatives aim to promote a decentralised
representative governance through accountable, transparent and inclusive
institutions.
By virtue of being a liberal democracy, all member states find common ground, parallel norms, alignment of macro foreign policy goals and understanding with each other. This allows the informal G7 to coordinate hard power security and economic interdependence in addition to cooperating with civil society groups to promote human rights, and uphold a democratic zone of peace in the face of non-democratic powers. A strong culture of mutual accountability exists between G7 states. Accountability may be through internal processors of the forum, where social norms allow for persuasion and disincentivize coercion. Coercion may not at all be necessary, as liberal democratic states would all be of a positive sum world view. Furthermore, the level of trade interdependence between states would act as means of checks and balances, as every state is needed by the other, thus it is in every G7 state’s interest to be in their good books.
The Illiberal Rest
Russia
and China, in addition to states such as Iran, Saudi Arabia and Venezuela are
understood by the West to be illiberal states. Both major powers, albeit one a
receding power, have capitalist and liberal economic systems where the state’s
political machine exerts a heavy pressure on the market mechanism. While the
state may be able to provide a higher quality safety net to its citizens by
restraining the destructive forces of capitalism to better allocate scarce
resources amongst the vulnerable, significant barriers to such exist. China’s
GDP has grown at a surprising rate vis a vis other developing states, which has
allowed the CCP significant geopolitical leverage. However, China’s domestic
political model is authoritarian, whereby citizens do not have much say in how
they are governed. Exclusive political institutions have no means of
accountability or transparency, which leads to significant corruption. As
Wedeman (2004) analyses, corruption is a feature of the Chinese system, thereby
stifling economic and social growth. Corruption and lack of domestic checks and
balances to those in power may be more apparent in Russia than China, where the
control of the Kremlin and the Oligarchs have poignant effects on not just its
citizens but also its neighbours; as the lack of domestic accountability may
mean the lack of stringent checks balances, which then mean lesser shackles on
the zero-sum ambitions.
Russia-Ukraine Conflict
The
Russia-Ukraine conflict may be interpreted as a conflict between the forces of
liberal democratic values of positive peace, pluralism and self-determination
versus a one man’s nostalgic dreams of a ‘Neo’ USSR. Being at complete odds,
the reaffirmed condemnation of Russia’s ‘’illegal and unjustifiable war of
aggression against Ukraine’’ by the liberal democratic G7 states is hardly a
surprise. Nor is their promise of ‘’needed financial, humanitarian, military,
and diplomatic support’’ for Ukraine in its defence of its sovereignty, during
its path on a free and democratic society.
The Sanctions Regime
Sanctions
and more sanctions were promised by the group of seven advanced economies, who
vowed to “align and expand targeted sanctions to further restrict Russia’’ in
its access to key technological industrial imports and services. Such a move
would severely restrict the ability to sustain their war machine thereby
adhering to security commitments to Ukraine. The G7 Leaders pledged new
sanctions on Russians who had committed war crimes in Ukraine, and are
contributing to exacerbating “global food insecurity” by “stealing and
exporting Ukrainian grain”. New penalties on Russian gold exports were further
proposed, as well as a cap on the oil price to phase out global dependency on
Russian energy.
However, a complete restriction of the import of Russian energy may be an ambitious task. European nations such as France get a quarter of their oil and 40% of their gas from Russia. While Germany has halted the progress of the controversial Nord Stream 2 pipeline, the EU has currently agreed to reduce its Russian gas imports by only two-thirds. President Biden however is banning all Russian oil and gas imports to the US, and the UK is ready to phase out Russian oil by the end of the year. The US, UK and Ukrainian Leaders are keen for other G7 nations to follow suit.
Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, who joined in on a trio of meetings via Videolink, stated that the summit will show "who is our friend, who is our partner and who sold us out and betrayed us". He reiterated his calls for fresh deliveries of weaponry, as he believes Russia will want to extend the war until winter wherein they could make new territorial gains to consolidate power. The financial support of G7 allies in 2022 already amounts to more than USD 2.8 billion in humanitarian aid, and a further USD 29.5 billion is pledged in supporting Ukrainian reconstruction.
China and the BRI
A
growing China poses a “threefold threat” to G7 countries — economically,
ideologically, and geopolitically. China’s GDP is second only to the US and it
is fast catching up. China’s growing state-overseen tech industry, fuelled by
globalisation and interdependence, is fast spreading a culture of surveillance
and censorship, which act as means for the globalisation of authoritarianism.
Said authoritarian ideals are further spread through Chinese geopolitical
projects and alliances such as the BRI, which usually focus on developing,
quasi democratic states with little to no accountability such as those in
Africa and Central Asia. Furthermore, China’s action with regard to the Uyghurs
in the Xinjiang region and its influence in Hong Kong have drawn condemnation
from G7 members. China’s growing trade and defence ties with Russia have also
caused concerns.
A
Western counter to the BRI emerged during the G7 summit, aptly named
Partnership for Global Infrastructure and Investment. The BRI is a global
infrastructure development strategy which was developed as per Chinese leader
Xi Jinping's vision in 2013, as a means for China to assume a greater role in
global politics by easing access to China and its capabilities and boosting
global GDP. Dubbed the Belt and Road Initiative and with over 145 countries
signed up, the BRI is currently constructing a network of overland routes, rail
transportation, sea lanes and energy pipelines to connect China to Southeast
Asia, Central and South Asia, the Middle East, Europe and Africa. However, the
project has been criticised as a tool to increase China’s political leverage in
developing countries. Thereby, the BRI has been criticised for neocolonialism,
economic imperialism.
In such a context, the G7 had launched a $600bn Build Back Better World (B3W) initiative infrastructure plan to counter China, in private and public funds to finance infrastructure in developing low and middle-income countries over five years. By working to narrow the global investment gap, the B3W would create new Just Energy Transition Partnerships with Indonesia, India, Senegal and Vietnam, building on existing partnerships with South Africa.
While US President Biden understood that “Developing countries often lack the essential infrastructure to help navigate global shocks (thus) feel the impacts … and they have a harder time recovering,” he stressed that the B3W “isn’t aid or charity. It’s an investment that will deliver returns for everyone”. Despite being dwarfed in comparison to the multi-trillion-dollar BRI, the B3W offers means of accountability, transparency and mutual trust between the neo liberal developed states and the developing states. The initiative would, according to Biden, further allow developing states to “see the concrete benefits of partnering with democracies”. While a cynic may argue that the developed have no interest in the developing other than exploitation and/or self-interest, and such may be observed to be true, President Biden may have been right when he said that underdevelopment is “not just a humanitarian concern, but an economic and a security concern for all”.
Mutual
gains depend on interdependence, and without developing countries, there cannot
be any sustainable recovery of the world economy. However, the development of
low-income states is necessary but insufficient for a holistic global economic
recovery, which remains shadowed by the conflict of value systems: liberal and
illiberal, democratic and authoritarian.
