China Tells the G7 to Stop Bullying Others and Solve Their Own Problems

Amidst the many demands made on all countries but their own by the G7’s Foreign Ministers at their May 14 meeting (cf. above), they issued an outrageously insulting statement on China to which Beijing gave a swift and stinging response. The G7 officials call on China “not to assist Russia in its war of aggression” or “undermine sanctions imposed on Russia”. They further instruct Beijing “to desist from engaging in information manipulation, disinformation and other means to legitimise Russia’s war of aggression against Ukraine.”

In a press conference on Monday, May 16, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Zhao Lijian blasted the “preposterous allegations not even worth refuting” made by the Group of Seven. His government in turn, he said, calls on the G7 “to uphold the international system with the United Nations at its core, the international order based on international law, and the basic norms governing international relations”. In that respect, he went on, the G7 should “respect China’s sovereignty, stop maligning China or meddling in China’s domestic affairs in any form, and stop bullying other countries with the rules of their own clique.”

Rather than fomenting conflicts, he went on, the G7 is called on “to act in the interest of world peace and development, stop applying double or multiple standards, stop sending military aircraft and warships to other countries’ doorsteps to flex muscles at every turn, stop wantonly instigating color revolutions in other countries, stop arbitrarily resorting to illegal sanctions or long-arm jurisdiction, and stop fabricating and spreading lies and rumors about China.”

In addition, the G7 is called on to help promote economic development in the world “instead of clinging to the Cold War mentality and ideological bias, pursuing ‘small clique’ group politics, creating confrontation and division, and bringing chaos to the world.”

The ministers of the seven purportedly rich countries of the world, we would add, have either not yet realized or just refuse to recognize that the “good old times”, when orders issued from Washington, London and other European capitals were taken seriously, are definitively over.