G7 takes aim at China over ‘market-distorting’ practices
G7 leaders on Tuesday condemned China's "non-transparent and market-distorting" international trade practices in an end-of-summit statement that hit out directly at Beijing for the first time.
The statement, which also pledged to reduce "strategic dependencies" on China, came hours before the leaders join a larger group of their counterparts at a NATO summit in Madrid.
There, the 30-member alliance was also poised to toughen its stance against Beijing in an update of its "strategic concept".
The United States has long cast a wary eye at China over its trade practices, which Washington believes are designed to accord an unfair advantage to Chinese companies over foreign firms.
Russia's invasion of Ukraine and Beijing's refusal to distance itself from Vladimir Putin has meanwhile prompted other countries, including export giant Germany, to also reconsider their economic reliance on the Asian giant.
In their closing statement following a three-day summit in the Bavarian Alps, the G7 leaders signalled that they would seek to extricate themselves from economic dependence on China.
They vowed to "foster diversification and resilience to economic coercion, and to reduce strategic dependencies".
The leaders also voiced concern about human rights violations in China, urging Beijing to respect fundamental freedoms.
They stressed that the situation in Tibet, and in Xinjiang, where there is "forced labour", "is of major concern to us".
The statement also urged China to "honour its commitments" under the Sino-British Joint Declaration, in which Beijing agreed Hong Kong could keep some freedoms and autonomy for 50 years under a "One Country, Two Systems" model.
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