G7 mulls a message to China: the West ain’t over just yet – Reuters

G7 mulls a message to China: the West ain’t over just yet – Reuters

The Group of Seven rich democracies will on Tuesday discuss ways of countering challenges from China and Russia without trying to contain Beijing or escalate tension with the Kremlin, two of its top diplomats said.

Founded in 1975 as a forum for the West’s richest nations to discuss crises such as the OPEC oil embargo, the G7 is debating responses to the two vast and increasingly assertive countries as well as the COVID-19 pandemic and climate change.

"It is not our purpose to try to contain China or to hold China down," U.S. President Joe Biden's secretary of state, Antony Blinken told reporters on Monday ahead of the first in-person G7 foreign ministers meeting since 2019.