China and Russia lash out at G7 ‘double containment’ attempt
Japan Times
23-05-21 05:53
Russia and China have criticised Group of Seven leaders in Hiroshima for their joint statement, following US President Joe Biden’s first in-person talks with Moscow’s Vladimir Putin days earlier in Geneva of working to “ensure predictability and stability” in world affairs amid “a new and challenging strategic landscape.” Moscow described the G7 statement as pushing the Ukraine war towards infliction of a strategic defeat upon Russia, while Beijing accused Washington of “coercive diplomacy,” claiming US sanctions against China and decoupling and disrupting industrial and supply chains made the US the real coercer. The G7 leaders pledged joint diplomatic, financial, humanitarian, and military support for Ukraine in the document. The statement also pledged they would “starve Russia of G7 technology, industrial equipment and services that support its war machine”, and that the G7 would continue to shield agricultural, medical and humanitarian products from the measures. Critics have accused the emerging rivalry between the G7 and China/Russia of creating two global blocks and a new Cold War, with third-world countries forced to take sides.