TOKYO : China will be the elephant in the room at this week's meeting of Group of Seven finance leaders, who will seek to diversify supply chains away from the country - but also try to get Beijing's cooperation in solving global debt problems.
While Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen will join the G7 finance leaders' talks, U.S. President Joe Biden on Tuesday signalled the chance of cancelling his trip to Hiroshima for next week's summit if the debt issue is not resolved. The U.S. debt crisis is a headache for Japan, which is this year's G7 chair and the world's biggest holder of U.S. debt.
Underscoring its desire to win over the"Global South," Japanese Finance Minister Shunichi Suzuki invited this year's African Union chair Comoros to an outreach meeting to be held on Friday. As the world's largest official bilateral creditor, China should participate in meaningful debt relief for countries facing problems, but it has served for too long as a"roadblock" to necessary action, Yellen said last month.
"The agenda of talks show how G7 is becoming increasingly politicized in nature, with an emphasis on countering China."