Opinion | G7 summit reveals US' silly intention to contain China

By Edward Hei Leung, DAB Standing Committee Member

Joseph Yam, the former Hong Kong Monetary Authority chief, commented the current Sino-US relation as the world's largest debtors clashing with its biggest creditor in an economic forum last year. Ironic though it may be, the distorting confrontation happens nowadays.

G7 looks strong outside, but in fact weak inside.

Last Sunday, G7 summit took a seemingly forceful stand to criticize China on Xinjiang, Hong Kong and Taiwan issues. Yet, CNN titled the latest G7 summit as "Biden causing sighs of relief among world leader even as G7 divisions linger". It does not take much to know that US president Joe Biden eagerly brings his message that America is back to US's alliances after Donald Trump left White House in early 2021. Despite his strong wish to contain China, political leaders in other G7 countries, including France, German and Italy, took the opposite views.

Italian Prime Minister Mario Draghi urged G7 not to cause undue offense to China, whereas German Chancellor Angela Merkel expressed her worries on G7's Cold War-style rhetoric opposing China. Meanwhile, French President Emmanuel Macron emphasized that G7 is not a club hostile to China. He said that G7 should work with the Asian economy on multiple fronts, namely climate change, world trade and development policies etc. In light of this, is the so-called unprecedented G7 confrontation against China a political window dressing?

Can the world ignore China?

China is no longer a country suffering from the foreign intrusion of Eight-Power Allied Force. International Monetary Fund (IMP) predicts that China will contribute more than one-fifth of the total increase in global GDP in the coming five years until 2026. That is to say, China is a major contributor to the world GDP growth.

Meanwhile, China is the world's largest manufacturing superpower, contributing 28.7% of global manufacturing output, more than the grand sum of the second-largest manufacturer, United States (16.8%), and the third-largest, Japan (7.5%). If counting in its US-dollar-based calculations, the real contribution of China must be greater than 30%.

More importantly, China has 3,330,405 USD million, the world largest foreign exchange reserves, at least two times higher than the amount Japan owns. Its solely enormous foreign exchange reserve has been sufficient enough to let China become the world champion, even though Hong Kong and Macau own 490,600 and 25,849 USD million respectively.

Under all these circumstances, can the world operate well without its largest GDP growth contributor, manufacturer and saver? The answer is crystally clear.

Will US containment policy against China succeed?

"The United States is sick. G7 should feel its pulse and prescribe medicine for it", our Foreign Ministry Spokesperson Zhao Lijian responded to G7 aggressive comments on Tuesday. Zhao denounced US intentional interferences in Xinjiang, Hong Kong and Taiwan issues, and declared that the era of a single country or a bloc of countries dictating world affairs is over.

From my point of view. Zhao's view is correct. US has monopolized global orders for years. It cannot be denied that the rise of China offers an alternative development model to other countries aside from US democracy. While US has its urgent needs to act against China, do other western countries have that kind of emergency?

As an old Chinese saying goes, the fisherman will benefit from the fight between the snipe and the clam. Sad but true, the poorer the Sino-US relation is, the larger benefit other countries can earn. In other words, the so-called containment is nothing more than US' silly dream.

The views do not necessarily reflect those of DotDotNews.