Group of Seven leaders will call on China to stop enabling and sustaining Russia’s war against Ukraine, according to a draft statement seen by Bloomberg, UNN reports.
Details
Ukraine's allies accuse Beijing of providing Russia with technology and components - either existing in weapons or needed to build them - helping Moscow circumvent wave after wave of G7 trade restrictions on many of these goods. "Banned materials often get to Russia through third countries such as China and Turkey or networks of intermediaries," the publication points out.
"China’s ongoing support for Russia’s defense industrial base has significant and broad-based security implications," the draft statement reads, which may still change before the leaders agree on it at the summit in Italy, which is scheduled to begin on Thursday.
A representative of the Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs responded to the draft, saying that China did not create the Ukrainian crisis and is not a party to the conflict.
"The G7 should take pragmatic responsibility to promote the easing of the situation and create conditions to solve the political crisis, rather than making groundless accusation towards a non-party to the conflict," the representative said in a statement to Bloomberg.
As part of efforts to counter sanctions circumvention, the Group of Seven countries and the EU are expected to impose new restrictions in the coming days, Bloomberg reported earlier.
Measures under discussion include adding more companies to the sanctions list, targeting banks in third countries that facilitate trade, requiring companies to step up checks on their subsidiaries and subcontractors abroad, and expanding restrictions on Western-branded goods that still enter Russia.
"The G-7 will also call on Beijing to push Russia to withdraw from Ukraine and support a just peace," report says.
Trade tensions between the G7 countries and China will be reflected in a broader statement. The leaders are expected to state that China's policies "create global spillovers, market distortions, and harmful overcapacity in a number of sectors," according to the draft.
"The G7 will reaffirm their efforts to reduce their critical dependence on China, while also confirming that they have no intention of breaking off relations.
"We are not trying to harm China or thwart its economic development, indeed a growing China that plays by international rules would be of global interest," the draft says.
The discussion comes amid rising trade tensions between the West and China, as the EU is set to confirm this week that it will impose tariffs on electric vehicles starting in July, and Beijing is expected to retaliate.
According to the draft, as another step toward China, the G7 intends to launch a mechanism to more effectively monitor non-market practices to improve information sharing and lay the groundwork for future cooperation on this issue.
The G7 officials are also still working to finalize details on how to use the profits generated by frozen sovereign Russians assets, which they hope will be one of the summit’s main outcomes.