Summer of Summits: The Rising Powers at G7 and SCO

Policy Alert #167 | June 14, 2018

It’s not even halfway through the month of June and the Rising Powers have already had a busy month of summits with their counterparts. The Group of Seven (G7) met in Quebec, Canada, June 8-9, 2018, while the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) convened in Qingdao, China, June 9-10, 2018. The G7 includes Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, the United Kingdom, and the United States. SCO’s membership comprises China, Russia, India, Pakistan, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyz Republic, Tajikistan, and Uzbekistan, as well as ten other observer and partner states in Eurasia. As many analysts note, the two blocs exhibit a striking contrast between the predominantly Western, industrialized powerhouses in international politics and a growing coalition of rising states whose interests have not been served by the status quo. In this first part of RPI’s coverage of the Rising Powers’ summer summits, we examine domestic responses to the successes, failures, and unprecedented personal dramas of the G7 and SCO.

 

CHINA

As host to this year’s SCO, Chinese President Xi Jinping served as chair during the summit. Whether intentional or not, Xi’s speech benefited greatly from the behavior of US President Donald Trump at the G7 and his commitment to maintaining tariffs against US allies: “While hegemony and power politics still persist in this world, the growing call for a more just and equitable international order must be heeded. Democracy in international relations has become an unstoppable trend of the times. While various traditional and non-traditional security threats keep emerging, the force for peace will prevail, for security and stability are what people long for. While unilateralism, trade protectionism and backlash against globalization are taking new forms, in this global village of ours where countries’ interests and future are so interconnected, the pursuit of cooperation for mutual benefit represents a surging trend. While we keep hearing such rhetoric as the clash of civilizations or the superiority of one civilization over another, it is the diversity of civilizations that sustains human progress. Indeed, mutual learning between different cultures is a shared aspiration of all peoples.” President Xi also announced that his country will set up an RMB 30 billion (USD 4.6 billion) lending facility within the SCO Inter-Bank Consortium to assist member states’ development.


INDIA

In his speech at the SCO, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi repeatedly emphasized the imperative for respect of member states’ sovereignty, most notably in his “SECURE” acronym, no doubt in reference to India’s objection to the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor that runs through parts of disputed Kashmir territory. India was the only member of SCO to withhold endorsement of China’s Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) in the joint communique.


RUSSIA

Russia is the only state that has participated in both the G7 and SCO. It was welcomed into the expanded Group of Eight (G8) in 1997, but was shunned from the organization with the sudden cancellation of the planned 2014 summit in Sochi following its annexation of Crimea from Ukraine. Although President Trump called for Russia to rejoin the group, Russian officials sounded uninterested. Russian President Vladimir Putin, at an SCO press conference, expressed his support for groups like the SCO instead: “If we take per capita numbers, the G7 countries are richer but the economy in the SCO is larger. [..T]he population numbers are also much bigger–half the world’s population.” In an interview on Russia’s Channel One, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov offered a nearly identical statement: “[Russia has] never begged to come back. […W]e are working perfectly in other formats, such as the SCO, BRICS, and especially the G20, where our partners share our approaches.” Spokesman Dmitry Peskov further suggested that the relevance of the G-7 is fading: “Over the years, this forum has been losing its importance because given the changing political and economic situation, other platforms, such as the G20, where Russia is an active member, have been becoming more important.”


JAPAN

Following the G7 summit, Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe noted the “intense debate” during the meeting, but argued that, “For the G7 to have exchanges of measures that restrict trade will not be in the interests of any country.”

  • The left-leaning Asahi Shimbun criticized the Abe administration for relying on “a foreign policy agenda fully dependent on the Trump White House.” “The Abe administration now needs to take a hard look at the effectiveness and limitations of its diplomatic approach and hammer out a new strategy firmly tethered to the new reality. […] Abe should confront and act on the obvious fact that Japan cannot protect its own interests by simply following the United States,” the Asahi asserted. In another editorial, the Asahi lamented the irony that the SCO, whose membership includes states that favor “autocratic policies and disrespect for international law,” “came across as a more positive force for the world in contrast to the G-7, which once acted as a bulwark against improper conduct by some countries. The Canada summit showed it to be in its worst moral shape in history.”
  • The conservative Yomiuri Shimbun lamented the G7’s “failure” and “functional disorder” at the summit in Quebec, but expressed its support for the group’s unanimous statement regarding North Korea. Regarding President Trump’s suggestion that Russia be invited back to the group, the Yomiuri strongly disagreed: “If Russia rejoins the G-7 group just at a time when the relationship among G-7 countries remains fragile, it could only deepen the antagonism between them.”
  • The Japan Times instead focused on the G7 members efforts to make progress despite the US and supported Abe’s efforts to pursue the Comprehensive and Progressive Trans-Pacific Partnership and brokering a bilateral trade agreement with the European Union: “To their credit, other G7 leaders are trying to step up and fill the vacuum created by the US retreat. […] Japan is right to demand adherence to global rules and Abe is to be applauded for his determination to strengthen them.