Leaders of the world‘s richest democracies moved on Friday to strengthen sanctions against Russia, and a draft official statement after talks in the Japanese city of Hiroshima stressed the need to reduce dependence on trade with China.
The G7 leaders, who will be joined by Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky this weekend, vowed to curb any exports to Russia that might help President Vladimir Putin in the military operation in Ukraine and to prevent the circumvention of sanctions.
“Today’s actions will clamp down on President Putin’s ability to launch his barbaric invasion and support our global efforts to stop Russia’s attempts to circumvent sanctions,” US Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen said in a statement.
A statement from the G7 leaders said the restrictions would cover exports of industrial machinery, tools and technology useful to Russia’s war effort, while efforts would be made to choke off Russian revenues from trade in minerals and diamonds.
With regard to China, which the G7 countries increasingly feel poses a threat to economic security, the group agreed that its status as the world‘s second largest economy requires efforts to strengthen cooperation, said an initial draft of the final communiqué, seen by Reuters.
The draft, which is still subject to amendments, indicated that “our policy approach is not intended to harm China, and we do not seek to thwart its economic progress and development.”
The draft called for “stable and constructive” relations with Beijing.
But it urged measures to “reduce excessive dependency” in critical supply chains and to counter “malicious practices” in technology transfer and data disclosure.
The draft reaffirmed the need for peace in the Taiwan Strait and urged China to pressure Russia to end aggression in Ukraine.
* A symbol to return the nuclear danger ticket
The Group of Seven, which groups the United States, Japan, Germany, Britain, France, Italy and Canada, will use the three-day meeting to discuss strategy toward the conflict in Ukraine, which shows no sign of abating.
Hiroshima, where the summit is being held, was staggeringly devastated after the United States dropped a nuclear bomb on it at the end of World War II 78 years ago.
Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida, who represents Hiroshima in the lower house of Japan’s parliament, said he chose the city as the venue for the global summit to focus attention on arms control.
Concerns about nuclear proliferation intensified after Russia’s threats of possible resort to nuclear weapons as well as the nuclear programs of North Korea and Iran.
In the draft statement, the G7 countries, including nuclear-armed France, Britain and the United States, expressed their “commitment to building a world free of nuclear weapons” through a “realistic, pragmatic and responsible approach.”
Having risen as the world‘s richest countries after World War II, the G7 democracies are facing increasing challenges from a rising China and an unpredictable Russia.
With evidence of the weak effect of existing sanctions on Russia due to fraud, the group said it was “reaching out” to countries through which any goods, services or technology covered by the G7 restrictions might move to Russia.
The group’s statement did not identify any countries, but a separate EU statement said it had asked Central Asian countries to watch out for fraud.
An analysis of German trade data shows that its exports to Russia’s neighbors rose sharply, raising concerns about re-exports of goods from those countries.
It was not immediately clear how far the new sanctions efforts would affect Russia, whose finances have already been battered by measures to reduce revenues from its vast energy reserves.
* Diamonds are a deferred topic
The US administration added dozens of entities to the trade blacklist, and Britain published plans to ban imports of Russian diamonds, copper, aluminum and nickel, but data showed the small volume of British imports of these commodities from Russia.
Highlighting the EU’s view that expanding sanctions on diamonds would only divert its trade to places other than the gem capital of Antwerp, Belgium, the G7 draft statement merely referred to possible moves for punitive measures in the future.