G7 offers rebuke to China over Beijing’s economic coercion campaign against Australia

Carbis Bay: A split has opened up between the United States and Britain over whether a lab leak was responsible for the coronavirus pandemic, as world leaders rebuke China for its campaign of economic coercion against Australia.

Prime Minister Scott Morrison said no nation in the G7 would have accepted any of the 14 grievances China listed against Australia last November in a dossier revealed by The Sydney Morning Herald and The Age.

US President Joe Biden during a news conference at the G7 summit on Sunday.Credit: AP

“There is not a country that would sit around that table that would seek a concession on any of those 14 points as something they also would tolerate. So I think you just set out very clearly that there are differences in world view here and they may never be able to be resolved,” Morrison said at a press conference.

Morrison raised the dossier of grievances with leaders at the meeting saying it “wouldn’t be of any surprise” to European countries which have similar experiences.

“But living with China, which is the goal, also requires us to be very clear about what our values are and what our principles are and how our countries are run and how we will continue to run, free of interference,” Morrison said.

The G7 summit in Cornwall wrapped up on Sunday with a statement criticising Beijing, but a dispute over how forceful the language should be produced a weaker condemnation than some countries had hoped.

While the communique did not explicitly reference China’s trade abuses, it did offer a coded reference to the damaging economic dispute between Australia and its biggest trading partner.

European Council President Charles Michel and Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison arrive for a plenary session of the G7 summit in Cornwall, south-west England on Sunday.Credit: Getty Images

“With regard to China, and competition in the global economy, we will continue to consult on collective approaches to challenging non-market policies and practices which undermine the fair and transparent operation of the global economy,” the leaders said.

The final communique mentioned China just four times, including a call for Beijing to respect human rights and freedoms in the Xinjiang province and Hong Kong.

China’s embassy in London responded on Monday by warning the G7 against slandering Beijing.

“We will resolutely defend our national sovereignty, security, and development interests, and resolutely fight back against all kinds of injustices and infringements imposed on China,” it said.

“China’s internal affairs must not be interfered in, China’s reputation must not be slandered, and China’s interests must not be violated.”

For the first time, the G7 communique also referenced Taiwan, by underscoring “the importance of peace and stability across the Taiwan Strait”. China’s democratic island neighbour has been repeatedly threatened by fighter jets and escalating Chinese military rhetoric over the past year.

Dr Mark Harrison, a Taiwan expert at the University of Tasmania, said the inclusion was “a remarkable diplomatic win” for the government of President Tsai Ing-wen and a sign of “the failure of Beijing’s cross-Strait tactics”.

“In the Xi era, with China’s national power as great as it is, international unity on Taiwan to reassert the Taiwan Strait status quo and maintain peace and security in the Taiwan Strait needs to be broader than just Indo-Pacific actors,” he said. “The G7 grouping has clearly been able to understand that need.”

Taiwan’s presidential office spokesman Xavier Chang said Taiwan would “defend the democratic system and safeguard shared universal values”.

US President Joe Biden did not deny he had sought tougher criticism from fellow leaders. European countries were thought to have argued for a gentler approach.

“There’s plenty of action on China. I’m satisfied,” Biden told reporters.

“I’m not looking for conflict. Where we can co-operate, we’ll co-operate. Where we disagree, I’m going to state it frankly.”

Italian Prime Minister Mario Draghi alluded to tensions over the G7s views while talking to Prime Minister Scott Morrison before the communique was issued.

“The only difference in views was the intensity of the message to China,” Draghi told Morrison, according to audio of their exchange.

Prime Minister Scott Morrison and British Prime Minister Boris Johnson in Cornwall for the G7 summit.Credit: AP

Australia was invited to the G7 as a guest and did not have a direct say in the final document.

Asked about China, Biden said the superpower had to “act more responsibly in terms of international norms, human rights and transparency”.

The President said US intelligence agencies had so far been unable to determine whether the pandemic was the result of animal-to-human contact or a leak from the Wuhan Institute of Virology.

As anticipated, the G7 supported a new World Health Organisation-led inquiry into what caused the pandemic amid growing momentum behind the lab theory.

“We haven’t had access to the laboratories,” said Biden, who added that the world needed to know whether the virus was the result of “an experiment gone awry in a laboratory.”

“It’s important to know the answer to that because we have to build a system whereby we can know when we see another lack of transparency might produce another pandemic,” Biden said.

“We have to have access. The world has to have access.”

However, British Prime Minister Boris Johnson earlier said his own best advice was that the virus had jumped to humans from an animal.

“At the moment, the advice that we have had is that it doesn’t look as though this particular disease of zoonotic origin came from a lab,” he said.

“Clearly anybody sensible would want to keep an open mind about that.”

Asked about whether there should be a new investigation, Morrison on Saturday framed the new inquiry as a chance to prevent future pandemics rather than a tool to target China.

“The purpose of these inquiries is to understand,” he said.

“It’s got nothing to do with politics or frankly blame or anything else. It is about understanding it so we all on a future occasion, should it occur, can move quickly and can respond and avoid the absolute carnage that we’ve seen from this pandemic to both lives and livelihoods all around the world.

“The transparency around these things is incredibly important just for health and safety, if nothing else.”

The Wuhan lab leak theory was promoted by former US president Donald Trump during 2020, but widely dismissed by health experts and some foreign intelligence officials.

However, it has gained new momentum over recent weeks following the latest US intelligence assessment and Biden’s open mind on the subject.

Get a note direct from our foreign correspondents on what’s making headlines around the world. Sign up for the weekly What in the World newsletter here.