WORLD / CROSS-BORDERS
US' efforts to form small cliques against China 'a wrong approach' to shift attention from domestic economic problems
Published: Jun 29, 2022 01:33 AM
US President Joe Biden waits for the start of a lunch with the G7 leaders at the Schloss Elmau hotel in Elmau, Germany, on June 27, 2022, during the annual G7 summit.
US President Joe Biden waits for the start of a lunch with the G7 leaders at the Schloss Elmau hotel in Elmau, Germany, on June 27, 2022, during the annual G7 summit. Photo: VCG

The White House on Tuesday issued a fact sheet on the challenges in the 21st century, including those "posed by China," calling on the G7 to strengthen cooperation as the US President Joe Biden attends the G7 summit in Germany. However, Chinese experts warned that it is just a move by the US to show its own wishful thinking and lure the other six countries in the group to jump into its anti-China bandwagon. However, the other developed countries might not necessarily follow.

Biden met with the leaders of the G7 to "strengthen cooperation on economic issues, cyberspace and quantum, and other 21st century challenges, including those posed by China to our workers, companies, and national security," the fact sheet said.

The G7, representing over 50 percent of the world's economy, is demonstrating that it is among the most potent institutions in the world today with like-minded democracies solving problems, read the fact sheet.

The so-called "threats posed by China" listed in the sheet include "unfair economic practices," "repression" and "forced labor" in China's Xinjiang and Xizang regions.

These are just old clichés that the US had been using to smear and contain China. Its real intention is to launch these issues amid the G7 summit in an attempt to draw the other six members of the group to its side to show a tough stance against China, Lü Xiang, research fellow at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, told the Global Times on Tuesday.

But probably, this is not the case for the other six countries, experts said.

The G7 summit and the NATO summit between June 28 to 30 in Madrid, could be Biden's last dance in Europe as the Democrats will probably lose the midterm election in November. Biden is making a final charge to convince and rally European leaders to come onboard its anti-China bandwagon amid domestic economic troubles, experts pointed out.

However, promoting an anti-China agenda of seeking bloc politics and camp confrontation against Beijing will not help the US to solve any of its domestic problems, Lü said, noting that Washington is moving in the wrong direction.

Biden's public approval rating fell for a fourth straight week to 36 percent matching its lowest level last seen in late May, according to a Reuters/Ipsos opinion poll on June 22.