Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida plans to draw attention to security concerns involving China at this week’s Group of Seven summit, tying the discussion to economic issues in order to keep the grouping focused on developments in East Asia.
Kishida departed Wednesday from Tokyo’s Haneda Airport to attend the G7 summit, which starts Thursday in Puglia in southern Italy. On Saturday, he will also participate in a global summit in Switzerland to discuss peace in Ukraine.
“I want this to be an opportunity to demonstrate the G7’s leadership in discussions on global challenges,” Kishida told reporters before leaving.
Key topics at this year’s G7 summit, chaired by Italy, include Russia’s war in Ukraine, Middle East tensions, Africa and migration.
The growing influx of migrants has become a major political flashpoint in the U.S. and in European countries. G7 leaders will discuss such underlying causes as poverty and climate change.
But the issue is not a top priority for Japan, which does not receive the same volume of migrants as other G7 members. Tokyo is more concerned that the current agenda shifts the grouping’s sights away from Chinese attempts to change the status quo in East Asia — a key topic of the 2023 summit in Hiroshima.
Kishida had urged Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni to include the Indo-Pacific region in the upcoming G7 agenda when they met in Japan in February. A session on the Indo-Pacific and economic security is scheduled for Friday.
Kishida is expected to be the first speaker at this session following the chair, setting the tone for the rest of the discussions. “I hope to call for economic security and a free and open Indo-Pacific,” he has told those close to him.
Kishida will touch on North Korea’s nuclear weapons and missile development and Chinese maritime activity in the East China Sea and the South China Sea — including near the Senkaku Islands, a Japanese-administered chain claimed by China as the Diaoyu.
He will also discuss the human rights situations in Hong Kong and Xinjiang, as well as the need for peace and stability in the Taiwan Strait.
While European G7 members are engaging more with the growing economies of the Indo-Pacific, there is still a gap between their attitudes and those of Japan and the U.S., which are grappling with Chinese military expansion.
French President Emmanuel Macron hosted a state visit by Chinese President Xi Jinping in May. German Chancellor Olaf Scholz went to China in April to discuss economic cooperation with Xi.
In April, G7 foreign ministers reaffirmed in a joint communique “the need to engage candidly with and express our concerns directly to China,” but also said they were “ready to cooperate with China on areas of common interest.” Japan will need to get G7 members on the same page regarding China to facilitate this dialogue.
Discussions from Hiroshima in 2023 will serve as a foundation. This was the first G7 summit that featured economic security as a separate item on the agenda. The leaders statement also noted the need to de-risk by curbing member countries’ economic dependence on China.
China has come under fire for providing unfair subsidies for electric vehicles and solar panels, leading to a flood of cheap exports out of the country. Japan, the U.S. and Europe have begun discussions toward a response to Chinese overproduction.
Kishida also aims to promote the Hiroshima AI Process, a framework to create rules in generative artificial intelligence. Non-G7 members have also joined a “friends group” to support the process.
