TOKYO, (Reuters) – On Saturday, the Group of Seven leaders decided to launch a new programme to combat economic coercion and promised to take steps to guarantee that any players seeking to weaponize economic reliance fail and suffer repercussions.
According to the initiative’s creators, the Coordination Platform on Economic Coercion would leverage early warning and quick information exchange on economic coercion, with participants meeting periodically for talks.
“The world has witnessed a troubling rise in incidents of economic coercion that seek to exploit economic vulnerabilities,” the G7 leaders said in a statement issued after their summit in Hiroshima, Japan.
The statement did not name China, but the British government objected to efforts by China to wield economic leverage in political conflicts with Australia and Lithuania in papers issued on Friday outlining the new project.
The declaration also committed the G7 leaders to further collaboration on hardening supply chains and asked for lower-income nations to play a larger role in fostering economic resilience.
They encouraged all countries to develop supply chain networks with “transparency, diversification, security, sustainability, and trustworthiness and reliability” in mind.
The group also decided to strengthen information-sharing cooperation as it seeks to set new standards for next-generation technology.