London Daily

Focus on the big picture.
Thursday, Sep 18, 2025

G7 takes stand against China’s ‘economic coercion’

G7 takes stand against China’s ‘economic coercion’

As the G7 leaders sent a strong message to Russia by inviting Volodymyr Zelensky to Hiroshima, another rival was also on their minds — China.
British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak said China posed “the greatest challenge of our age” in regards to global security and prosperity, and that it was “increasingly authoritarian at home and abroad”.

And in not one but two statements, the leaders of the world’s richest democracies made clear to Beijing their stance on divisive issues such as the Indo-Pacific and Taiwan.

But the most important part of their message centered on what they called “economic coercion”.

It’s a tricky balancing act for the G7. Through trade their economies have become inextricably dependent on China, but competition with Beijing has increased and they disagree on many issues including human rights.

Now, they worry they are being held hostage.

In recent years, Beijing has been unafraid to slap trade sanctions on countries that have displeased them. This includes South Korea, when Seoul installed a US missile defense system, and Australia during a recent period of chilly relations.

The European Union was particularly alarmed when China blocked Lithuanian exports after the Baltic country allowed Taiwan to set up a de facto embassy there.

So it is unsurprising that the G7 would condemn what they see as a “disturbing rise” of the “weaponization of economic vulnerabilities”.

This coercion, they said, seeks to “undermine the foreign and domestic policies and positions of G7 members as well as partners around the world”.

They called for “de-risking”— a policy that von der Leyen, who is attending the summit, has championed. This is a more moderate version of the US’ idea of “decoupling” from China, where they would talk tougher in diplomacy, diversify trade sources, and protect trade and technology.

They have also launched a “coordination platform” to counter the coercion and work with emerging economies. While it’s still vague on how this would work exactly, we’re likely to see countries helping each other out by increasing trade or funding to work around any blockages put up by China.

The G7 also plans to strengthen supply chains for important goods such as minerals and semiconductors, and beef up digital infrastructure to prevent hacking and stealing of technology.

But the biggest stick they plan to wield is multilateral export controls. This means working together to ensure their technologies, particularly those used in military and intelligence, don’t end up in the hands of “malicious actors”.

The US is already doing this with its ban on exports of chips and chip technology to China, which Japan and the Netherlands have joined. The G7 is making clear such efforts would not only continue, but ramp up, despite Beijing’s protestations.

They also said they would continue to crack down on the “inappropriate transfers” of technology shared through research activities. The US and many other countries have been concerned about industrial espionage and have jailed people accused of stealing tech secrets for China.

At the same time, the G7 leaders were clear they did not want to sever the cord.

Much of their language on economic coercion did not name China, in an apparent diplomatic attempt to not directly point a finger at Beijing.

When they did talk about China, they stood their ground in a nuanced way.

They sought to placate Beijing, saying their policies were “not designed to harm China nor do we seek to thwart China’s economic progress and development”. They were “not decoupling or turning inwards”.

But they also put pressure on the Chinese to cooperate, saying that a “growing China that plays by international rules would be of global interest”.

They also called for “candid” engagement where they could still express their concerns directly to China, signaling their willingness to keep communication lines open in a tense atmosphere.

We won’t know how, privately, Chinese leaders and diplomats will take the G7’s message. But state media in the past has hit back at the West for trying to have it both ways, by criticizing China while also enjoying the fruits of their economic partnership.

For now Beijing has chosen to fall back on its usual angry rhetoric for its public response.

China had clearly anticipated the G7’s statements and in the days leading up to the summit, its state media and embassies put out pieces accusing the US of its own economic coercion and hypocrisy.

On Saturday evening, they accused the G7 of “smearing and attacking” China and lodged a complaint with summit organizer Japan.

They also urged the other G7 countries not to become the US’ “accomplice in economic coercion”, and called on them to “stop ganging up to form exclusive blocs” and “containing and bludgeoning other countries”.

It is worth noting that China has also sought to create its own alliances with other countries, and late last week just as the G7 summit kicked off, it hosted a parallel meeting with Central Asian countries.

It’s still not clear if the G7’s plan will work. But it is likely to be welcomed by those who have called for a clear strategy to handle China’s encroachments.

Indo-Pacific and China expert Andrew Small praised the statement as having “the feel of a real consensus”, noting that it expressed the “center-ground” view of the G7.

“There are still major debates playing out around what ‘de-risking’ actually means, how far some of the sensitive technology export restrictions should go, and what sort of collective measures need to be taken against economic coercion,” said Dr. Small, a senior transaAtlantic fellow with the German Marshall Fund think tank.

“But there is now a clear and explicit framing around how the economic relationships with China among the advanced industrial economies need to be rebalanced.”
Newsletter

Related Articles

0:00
0:00
Close
Massive Strikes in France Pressure Macron and New PM on Austerity Proposals
Trump Seeks Supreme Court Permission to Remove Fed Governor Lisa Cook
Hillary Clinton’s Reckless Rhetoric Fuels Division After Charlie Kirk’s Assassination
NASDAQ Rises to Record as Intel Soars More Than 20%, Nvidia Gains 3%
Nvidia’s $5 Billion Bet on Intel Reshapes AI Hardware Landscape
Trump and Starmer Clash Over UK Recognition of Palestinian State Amid State Visit
Trump’s Quip on Biden and Google Lawsuit Revives Debate Over Antitrust Legacy
Macron and his wife to provide 'scientific photographic evidence' that she is a real woman
US Tech Giants Pledge Billions to UK AI Infrastructure Following Starmer's Call
Saudi Arabia cracks down on music ‘lounges’ after conservative backlash
DeepMind and OpenAI Achieve Gold at ‘Coding Olympics’ in AI Milestone
SEC Allows Public Companies to Block Investors from Class-Action Lawsuits
Saudi Arabia Signs ‘Strategic Mutual Defence’ Pact with Pakistan, Marking First Arab State to Gain Indirect Access to Nuclear Strike Capabilities in the Region
Federal Reserve Cuts Rates by Quarter Point and Signals More to Come
Effective and Impressive Generation Z Protest: Images from the Riots in Nepal
European manufacturers against ban on polluting cars: "The industry may collapse"
Sam Altman sells the 'Wedding Estate' in Hawaii for 49 million dollars
Trump: Cancel quarterly company reports and settle for reporting once every six months
Turkish car manufacturer Togg Enters German Market with 5-Star Electric Sedan and SUV to Challenge European EV Brands
US Launches New Pilot Program to Accelerate eVTOL Air Taxi Deployment
Christian Brueckner Released from German Prison after Serving Unrelated Sentence
World’s Longest Direct Flight China Eastern to Launch 29-Hour Shanghai–Buenos Aires Direct Flight via Auckland in December
New OpenAI Study Finds Majority of ChatGPT Use Is Personal, Not Professional
Hong Kong Industry Group Calls for HK$20 Billion Support Fund to Ease Property Market Stress
Joe Biden’s Post-Presidency Speaking Fees Face Weak Demand amid Corporate Reluctance
Charlie Kirk's murder will break the left's hateful cancel tactics
Kash Patel erupts at ‘buffoon’ Sen. Adam Schiff over Russiagate: ‘You are the biggest fraud’
Homeland Security says Emmy speech ‘fanning the flames of hatred’ after Einbinder’s ‘F— ICE’ remark
Charlie Kirk’s Alleged Assassin Tyler Robinson Faces Death Penalty as Charges Formally Announced
Actor, director, environmentalist Robert Redford dies at 89
The conservative right spreads westward: a huge achievement for 'Alternative for Germany' in local elections
JD Vance Says There Is “No Unity” with Those Who Celebrate Charlie Kirk’s Killing, and he is right!
Trump sues the 'New York Times' for an astronomical sum of 15 billion dollars
Florida Hospital Welcomes Its Largest-Ever Baby: Annan, Nearly Fourteen Pounds at Birth
U.S. and Britain Poised to Finalize Over $10 Billion in High-Tech, Nuclear and Defense Deals During Trump State Visit
China Finds Nvidia Violated Antitrust Laws in Mellanox Deal, Deepens Trade Tensions with US
US Air Force Begins Modifications on Qatar-Donated Jet Amid Plans to Use It as Air Force One
Pope Leo Warns of Societal Crisis Over Mega-CEO Pay, Citing Tesla’s Proposed Trillion-Dollar Package
Poland Green-Lights NATO Deployment in Response to Major Russian Drone Incursion
Elon Musk Retakes Lead as World’s Richest After Brief Ellison Surge
U.S. and China Agree on Framework to Shift TikTok to American Ownership
London Daily Podcast: London Massive Pro Democracy Rally, Musk Support, UK Economic Data and Premier League Results Mark Eventful Weekend
This Week in AI: Meta’s Superintelligence Push, xAI’s Ten Billion-Dollar Raise, Genesis AI’s Robotics Ambitions, Microsoft Restructuring, Amazon’s Million-Robot Milestone, and Google’s AlphaGenome Update
Le Pen Tightens the Pressure on Macron as France Edges Toward Political Breakdown
Musk calls for new UK government at huge pro-democracy rally in London, but Britons have been brainwashed to obey instead of fighting for their human rights
Elon Musk responds to post calling for the murder of Erika Kirk, widow of Charlie Kirk: 'Either we fight back or they will kill us'
Czech Republic signs €1.34 billion contract for Leopard 2A8 main battle tanks with delivery from 2028
USA: Office Depot Employees Refused to Print Poster in Memory of Charlie Kirk – and Were Fired
Proposed U.S. Bill Would Allow Civil Suits Against Judges Who Release Repeat Violent Offenders
Penske Media Sues Google Over “AI Overviews,” Claiming It Uses Journalism Without Consent and Destroys Traffic
×