South China Sea warning looms over G7 summit
Meeting begins with call to end nuclear weapons, but Beijing says Japanese plan to raise maritime concerns threatens to overshadow proceedings
The foreign ministers of the Group of Seven nations began a summit in Japan on Sunday by calling for an end to nuclear weapons, but Beijing warned the meeting’s “deserving concerns” could be overshadowed by a Japanese move to make the South China Sea a key item on the agenda.
The meeting is taking place in Hiroshima, a Japanese city obliterated by a US atomic bomb more than seven decades ago, but Japanese Foreign Minister Fumio Kishida, who presides over the two-day annual meeting this year, said the ministers would also discuss maritime security.
Beijing has voiced strong opposition to the summit’s agenda, labelling Tokyo’s move to make disputes over the sea a key talking point “a provocation” that would shift the focus of the meeting from “more deserving concerns”.
Japanese officials expect the G7 ministers to voice opposition to any unilateral action to change the status quo in the sea and to encourage Western nations to get more involved on behalf of Southeast Asian countries.
“I hope that a strong message of peace, stability and prosperity will be sent out to the world at the Hiroshima G7 foreign ministers’ meeting,” Kishida said at the start of the welcome reception.
Confrontations over the sea, particularly between China and the US, are causing growing concerns. Washington has stepped up criticism and surveillance of Chinese activities in the sea, while European diplomats have called for international laws and rules to be obeyed.
Beijing has hit back, with Foreign Minister Wang Yi saying G7 involvement would do nothing to help find a solution.
Wang’s comment was followed by a scathing article by state-run news agency Xinhua, which claimed Tokyo’s real reason for bringing the subject up was to “provoke the West into lashing out at China”.
But the Xinhua article said a statement from the G7 meeting might be expected to refer to the disputes, but was unlikely to denounce Beijing’s actions.
At their 2015 meeting in Lübeck, Germany, the G7 foreign ministers issued a declaration on maritime security in which they called for the peaceful settlement of disputes in accordance with international law and for related court decisions to be respected.
“It is unlikely that China’s position on and actions in the South China Sea would be altered by a G7 statement,” said Tao Wenzhao, an expert on China-US relations at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences.
Cui Hongjian, head of European Studies at the China Institute of International Studies, said any pressure would be limited as the Europeans did not want to openly accuse China of any wrongdoing. “Like last year, the European countries wouldn’t want to take a clear side, or explicitly criticise China about the South China Sea,” Cui said.
Like last year, the European countries wouldn’t want to take a clear side, or explicitly criticise China about the South China Sea
Tackling terrorism and nuclear disarmament are also high on the meeting’s agenda.
US Secretary of State John Kerry is to join his counterparts from Britain, Canada, France, Germany, Italy and Japan today to visit an atomic bomb museum and lay flowers at a cenotaph.
A US warplane dropped a nuclear bomb on Hiroshima on August 6, 1945, reducing the city to ashes and killing 140,000 people by the end of that year.
(Source : scmp.com)
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