Opinion

G7 must stop meddling in other nations’ affairs – including China’s – and accept it is no longer relevant

As the G7’s slice of the world economy has shrunk, so has its importance and its leaders must adjust to the reality that the group’s influence is waning

Long gone are the days when a handful of countries could freely meddle in others’ internal affairs and manipulate global issues

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Liu Guangyuan is Commissioner of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the People's Republic of China in the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region.

Published: 1:30am, 30 May 2023Updated: 2:19am, 30 May 2023

Leaders of the Group of Seven (G7) nations gathered in Hiroshima, Japan, from May 19 to 21 for a summit, during which they issued a joint communique that read like a manifesto by a world government poking its nose into other countries’ affairs.

World peace and the global order have been under siege as the G7, dependent on the whims of the United States, has degenerated into a geopolitical tool with deep ideological prejudice and a Cold War mentality designed to contain China and intensify confrontations between political and economic blocs.

With weakening economic heft, representing the world has become a tall order for the G7. When it was founded in the 1970s, the G7 accounted for almost 70 per cent of the global economy. However, with the rise of developing countries and emerging economies, its share of global gross domestic product has continued to fall and is expected to dip to 30 per cent this year, according to the International Monetary Fund.