LONDON – The common front is already creaking. On the second day of the G7 summit in Cornwall, divisions emerged between the United States and the European Union on how to manage China and between Great Britain and the EU on the Irish protocol. Full agreement on the need to cooperate on the production and distribution of vaccines to prevent another pandemic, with the signing of the Carbis Bay Declaration.
Joe Biden, making his overseas debut as president of the United States, aims to create an alliance of democracies to counter the rise of China. The G7 has adopted the American proposal for an alternative to the New Silk Road, the large network of trillion-dollar infrastructure projects funded by Beijing to accelerate trade. The project is called “Build back better world” or B3W (rebuilding the world better) and according to the US it would be a “positive, sustainable, transparent and values-based” global infrastructure initiative, in fact an ethical and green alternative to della Seta to help developing countries “without asking for anything in return”.
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The differences between the US and the EU on China
The Big Seven agree on the need to stem China, but the EU focuses on cooperation while the US opts for a tougher approach. There is no agreement for now on the details of the plan and on the funding needed to implement it. According to reliable sources, it is Germany above all that is rowing against. China is the number one destination for German exports. Chancellor Angela Merkel said it is better to have a positive message, to be “for something, not against”.
Biden would also like to include in the final communiqué of the summit an explicit condemnation of forced labor and human rights violations by Beijing in Xinjiang and Hong Kong, while the EU would prefer to speak in general terms and not name China.
Italian Prime Minister Mario Draghi, as president of the G20, recalled how essential it is to cooperate with China on global issues such as the fight against climate change.