Trudeau in Japan for G7 summit with China, Russia threat in focus – National | 24CA News
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has landed in Hiroshima, Japan for the G7 Leaders’ Summit, the place he’s anticipated to push for elevated co-operation on international and financial safety to protect in opposition to geopolitical instability and the specter of local weather change.
All eyes might be on how G7 international locations, nonetheless, select to handle the specter of China particularly.
Leaders of G7 international locations – Canada, the United States, the United Kingdom, Germany, France, Italy and Japan – meet yearly to collaborate on shared objectives. This yr’s summit will deal with seven important agenda objects, together with geopolitical and international safety points, financial resilience and local weather change and power.
Prior to the summit, Trudeau concluded his first official go to to South Korea on Thursday the place the 2 international locations reached agreements on the availability chain of crucial minerals – used for electrical automobiles – and youth mobility.
Canada is hoping to develop its alliances past its conventional western companions by looking for nearer relationships with South Korea and Japan. The Liberal authorities’s Indo-Pacific technique gives a roadmap for strengthening navy and financial relationships within the area to counterbalance the affect of Beijing.
Seoul and Tokyo have additionally been working to restore their relations as they deepen three-way safety co-operation with Washington in response to rising regional threats from North Korea and China.
The assembly between G7 international locations comes amid elevated tensions with China within the area and an ongoing struggle in Ukraine, each of that are anticipated to be focuses of the summit.
For Canada’s half, it’s anticipated to hunt the G7 members’ co-operation on offering ongoing assist to Ukraine in addition to addressing local weather change.
In an announcement Trudeau supplied to the University of Toronto’s G7 analysis group forward of the summit, the prime minister linked addressing local weather change with elevated safety.
“The clean economy presents a once-in-a-generation opportunity to not only keep 1.5 degrees Celsius of warming within reach and to avert the worst impacts of climate change, but also to create and secure good, middle-class jobs for our people and grow our economies,” Trudeau wrote.
“When we cut emissions, we can drive economic growth and build new strong, reliable supply chains that reduce our reliance on raw materials and components from countries such as China and Russia, too. This is economic policy, it is climate policy and it is security policy.”
Trudeau additionally addressed tensions with China throughout a joint news convention with South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol on Wednesday, noting each international locations plan to watch out of their strategy with China.
“We recognize _ both of us _ that China is an important economic partner, not just in the region but around the world,” Trudeau mentioned.
“But we need to be clear-eyed about where we co-operate with China,” Trudeau added, noting that Canada co-hosted a United Nations summit on biodiversity with the nation in Montreal final yr.
“We need to know where we’re going to be competing with China on economic grounds and where we need to challenge China on human rights and other issues,” he mentioned.
“It’s something that we will both be continuing to do in ways that make sense for our own countries and our own situations.”
South Korea has additionally been invited to attend the G7 Leaders’ Summit.
Last week, Finance Minister Chrystia Freeland met with different G7 finance ministers and mentioned improve co-operation amongst like-minded international locations.
They intention to “differentiate our economies to make our supply chains more resilient, and to create good jobs for people in Canada and around the world,” she mentioned throughout a news convention Friday.
“Specifically, (by) working together to respond to economic coercion by authoritarian regimes.”
But the joint assertion launched by the finance ministers and central bankers didn’t embrace any particular point out of China or of “economic coercion” in pursuit of political goals, reminiscent of penalizing the businesses of nations whose governments take actions that anger one other nation.
The summit can also be anticipated to offer extra voice and a spotlight to the Global South _ a time period to explain principally growing international locations in Africa, Asia and Latin America. Japan has invited international locations starting from South American powerhouse Brazil to the tiny Cook Islands within the South Pacific.
By broadening the dialog past the world’s richest industrialized nations, analysts say the group hopes to strengthen political and financial ties whereas shoring up assist for efforts to isolate Russia and stand as much as China’s assertiveness all over the world.
_ with information from The Associated Press
© 2023 The Canadian Press
