Editor's note: The G7 hardly ever mentions the UN Charter, instead, it keeps talking about "democracy" and the so-called rules-based international order. However, when the G7 countries talk about international rules, they mean the rules set by the West that draw lines based on the ideology and values of a small circle and could escalate regional confrontations. Three experts share their views on the issue with China Daily.

US tech decoupling self-destructive

Dan Steinbock

US President Joe Biden's expanded technology war is bad news to American business, financial giants, high-tech industries and consumers. Over time, it will penalize Asia's economic recovery and global economic prospects.

Under pressure to clarify its economic and security policies toward China, the Biden administration recently dispatched two top emissaries to "explain "that the United States does not seek to "decouple" from China (which it effectively seems to be doing).

Both US Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen and National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan left unanswered the question of how Washington plans to curb tech transfers to and investments in China. That fostered perception that the new US measures could harm investors and disrupt the world's trading system. The US is risking a misguided tech war.

Over the past few years, US Congress has strengthened the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States, while using its authority to scrutinize some of the US enterprises' overseas investments. In 2018, Congress also overhauled the systems screening investments into the US and imposing controls on the exports of goods and technology. Last October, the Biden administration announced sweeping and highly controversial restrictions on the exports of sensitive technologies to China with the aim of undermining the country's ability to buy advanced chips and chip-making equipment.

Also, the administration has built "guardrails" into the CHIPS and Science Act by limiting the investments recipients of subsidies can make in China. Besides, financial sanctions have been added to the Treasury's "specially designated nationals" list.

Hence, to argue, as Yellen and Sullivan did, that the administration will only impose "narrow" investment restrictions, is self-illusionary. After all, the measures have both broad and untargeted negative implications, especially at a time when the US economy is teetering at the edge of recession, and facing a spreading banking crisis and rising debt default risk.

In addition to the proposed ban on foreign investment by US companies in Chinese tech companies, the administration now wants to restrict the number and kinds of technologies that can be sold to China. With their initial focus on high-end semiconductors, the guidelines may extend to artificial intelligence, quantum computing, electric vehicles and rare earth metals; in brief, the perceived emerging industries of the future.

Ironically, both the White House and a bipartisan group in Congress have had a hard time reaching a consensus on restriction on outward investment. Seeking competitive leverage as always, US businesses and financial giants still want to work with China, while ordinary Americans, any day, prefer cheap, affordable prices. Yet the Biden administration, Capitol Hill and the Pentagon have different goals.

As US think tanks have projected, Biden's executive order targeting China will have far-reaching impacts on investments in publicly-listed Chinese enterprises by individuals and companies, investments in startups by venture capital and private equity funds, investments by US companies, typically in research and development or production facilities in China, and the activities of US companies' subsidiaries and foreign enterprises' US subsidiaries.

Despite the administration's efforts to multilateralize these misguided policies, the US will likely be alone in having to walk the talk. Although the European Union has signaled rhetorical interest in an outbound regime, it is unlikely to turn its willingness into action in the near term. And Japan and the Republic of Korea do have outbound investment review regimes, but both are narrowly targeted.

If that's the case, why is the Biden administration in such a hurry? Two weeks after Biden announced his re-election campaign, his approval ratings sank to a record low of 36 percent. As the administration failed to reset its ties with China, opted to expand the trade war into a tech war, issued contested economic policies and engaged in a controversial proxy war in Ukraine, Biden's ratings began to plunge.

And with fiscal policy feeding into runaway inflation, the intensifying banking crisis and another debt-limit debacle, this trend is not likely to change anytime soon.

Whatever meager security benefit the Biden administration hopes to gain from withholding US investment and international recognition from Chinese high-tech companies may be offset by the huge collateral damage these new restrictions are likely to cause.

Over time, the restrictions may virtually ensure that Americans will not learn from Chinese tech companies, many of which are already at or close to the top in their fields in science and technology.

In early 2021, former World Trade Organization economist Anne Krueger said that previous US president Donald Trump's modus operandi was to bully Beijing "on trade, foreign investment, cyberspace, e-commerce, intellectual property, the South China Sea, Taiwan, and other issues". She proposed a thorough reset in the US-China trade ties.

If Trump's bombastic, go-it-alone approach was fundamentally flawed, Biden's tech restrictions will penalize US businesses, investors and consumers, and derail global recovery, while causing massive losses in missed opportunities. It is the wrong thing to do at the wrong time.

Japan using G7 to provoke confrontation

Xiang Haoyu

Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida appears on the cover of the May edition of Time magazine along with a text that reads: "Prime Minister Fumio Kishida wants to abandon decades of pacifism — and make his country a true military power."

The cover story inside, however, says "some believe that Japan's rearmament chafes with Kishida's longstanding pledges to work toward a nuclear-free world", especially because he was born in Hiroshima.

Despite Japan formulating a pacifist Constitution after the end of World War II and vowing to adhere to peace and development, the country is no longer a "peaceful country" even in the eyes of its most intimate ally, the United States.

Kishida worked really hard trying to make the three-day G7 Summit in his hometown of Hiroshima that concluded on Sunday a success.

The three main features of Japan's G7 diplomacy are: condemning Russia, containing China, and winning over the Global South. However, Japan's efforts to win over the Global South to its side failed, making it difficult for the G7 to be included in its summit declaration.

True, the purported goal of the G7 Summit was to build an "ideal", nuclear-free world. But when it comes to denuclearization and disarmament, the G7 resorts to double standard, using different sets of rules to judge the actions of the United States, the United Kingdom, France, Japan and other advanced countries on the one side, and those of China and Russia on the other.

So when Japan says it wants to play a leading role in addressing global problems, it actually means that it wants to manipulate geopolitical issues and provoke bloc confrontation.

As Japan is the only Asian member of the G7, some Japanese politicians claim that the country has been playing the role of "Asian spokesman for global leaders", because of its "ideological superiority".

Hiroshima is one of the two cities in the world that has suffered a nuclear attack. So Kishida used that to promote the idea of creating "a world without nuclear weapons" at the G7 Summit, and assume the global leadership in nuclear disarmament.

Paradoxically, Kishida's Cabinet has approved the revision of three national security documents, which authorizes Japan to launch (preemptive) "counter-strikes" against enemy bases. Also, Kishida's government has approved a record increase in Japan's defense budget, signaling a radical shift in Japan's postwar defense and security policy.

The defense strategy of Kishida, considered a dove by many, is actually more aggressive than that of the hawkish Shinzo Abe, Japan's longest serving prime minister who was assassinated last year in Nara, Honshu.

Kishida's efforts to militarize Japan in order to counter non-existent external threats have created a sense of déjà vu among some Japanese scholars, who say the atmosphere in Japan today seems similar to that in the 1930s when Japan launched its most aggressive, brutal expansionist move.

Hence, when G7 leaders pay their respects to the victims of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, they should not forget the main reason behind the tragedy.

Japan's pacifist Constitution exists only in name today, as the Kishida administration intends to allocate 2 percent of Japan's GDP to the defense budget by 2027, which is a 60 percent increase over the present amount. That the move will make Japan's defense budget the third-largest in the world shows Japan is on the way to becoming a military power again, and once again its target is China.

The G7 Summit discussed a lot of China-related issues including China's so-called use of "economic coercion", and devoted much time to find ways to contain China's rise. This is not surprising, considering that all G7 members, except Japan, are also members of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, and Japan has been strengthening its ties with NATO since last year.

In fact, NATO is planning to open a liaison office in Tokyo, its first in Asia. And Japan seems eager to act as a catalyst to NATO's expansion in the Asia-Pacific.

But Japan's efforts to build an anti-China alliance risk triggering divisions, which could lead to confrontations in the region.

Worse, Japan and its Western allies, especially the US, have been claiming there is a "similarity" between the Ukraine crisis and the Taiwan question, which is a lie. But people who do not know the full cross-Taiwan Strait history may be fooled into believing that lie. The truth is, there is only one China, and Taiwan is an integral part of China — only that Japan colonized the island for 50 years, from 1895 to 1945.

Therefore, the international society should condemn Japan's attempt to use the G7 Summit to peddle lies. When the G7 was established in the 1970s as a grouping of major industrialized countries, its aim was to promote good global governance, particularly in the field of macroeconomics, because the G7's share of global GDP at the time was about 60 percent.

But today, the G7's share of the global economy has dropped to 40 percent thanks to the dramatic rise of emerging economies. So should the G7 still act as the leader of the global economy and play the leading role in global governance?

The G7 countries have failed to lead global economic recovery and, instead, some of them have been trying to shift the economic pressure to others by continuously raising interest rates and resorting to trade protectionism.

The world is no longer interested in knowing how much the G7 economies contribute to global economic recovery, because their contribution has reduced drastically over the years. Instead, it just wants the G7 countries to not cause another financial or economic turmoil through their foolish and selfish actions.

In fact, there is no reason why the G7 should exist today, given that it lost its relevance years ago. However, by using the G7 Summit to further his agenda and fulfill his narrow goals, Kishida might have unwittingly triggered the process of the G7's slow death.

Seoul stands to lose by reconciling with Tokyo

Liu Litao

Northeast Asia is undergoing remarkable changes. Under Prime Minister Yoon Sukyeol, the Republic of Korea has been trying to improve ROK-Japan relations by turning a blind eye to history, especially Japan's militarist past and the atrocities the Imperial Japanese Army committed in Korea and other parts of the Asia-Pacific region including China. And the United States, Japan and the ROK are aggressively strengthening their strategic ties.

But by doing so, the US-Japan-ROK alliance risks triggering confrontations in Northeast Asia.

More important, by trying to establish friendly relations with Japan and mostly depending on the US to boost its economy, by reducing trade and other relations with China, the ROK could end up on the opposite side of the global economic trend. ROK-Japan relations have always been the weakest link in the US-Japan-ROK alliance, with Seoul-Tokyo ties hitting rock bottom during the term of Moon Jae-in as ROK president, with open spats over history and territory.

But Seoul's attitude toward Tokyo has changed since Yoon became ROK president. On March 1, the 104th anniversary of the 1919 Independence Movement of Korea, a movement that called for complete independence from imperial Japanese rule, Yoon unabashedly claimed that Japan has changed from an "aggressor" to a "partner".

Under the Yoon administration's scheme, the Foundation for Victims of Forced Mobilization funded by ROK enterprises, paid compensation to some of the Korean people who were enslaved by Japanese companies before and during World War II. This allowed the Japanese companies to wash their hands of the crime of wartime forced labor.

The ROK's unilateral concession has paved the way for the improvement of ROK-Japan relations. And Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida's visit to Seoul earlier this month came less than two months after Yoon Suk-yeol paid a visit to Tokyo, marking the resumption of "shuttle diplomacy" between the two neighbors after a 12-year suspension caused by their differences over Japan's occupation of Korea and war crimes.

That in turn bolstered the US-Japan-ROK alliance, and from now on, the ROK will share more information with Japan on the Democratic People's Republic of Korea's missile launch and other nuclear programs. Also, the US, Japan and the ROK are working to strengthen their trilateral security mechanism through frequent bilateral and trilateral meetings.

While Seoul is trying to consolidate its security alliance with Washington, Yoon has been emphasizing that the ROK-US alliance is an alliance of value, aimed at safeguarding the universal values of freedom and democracy. During his visit to the US in April, Yoon even said that "the alliance was forged in blood as a result of our fight for freedom".

Besides, the US and ROK leaders issued the Washington Declaration in April, saying they are committed to strengthening their security alliance.

As for China-ROK relations, the Yoon government has challenged China's core interests and joined the US-led anti-China club by abandoning its years-long balanced diplomacy. The Yoon administration, it appears, prefers dancing to the US' tune to promote the so-called value-oriented diplomacy and counter China, rather than doing what is best for his country and its people. The ROK seems to rely on the US for both security and economic development, instead of adhering to its earlier policy of relying on the US for security and China for trade and economic growth.

However, the ROK-Japan unprincipled reconciliation may not last long, and decoupling with China will harm the ROK's national interests. The sooner Yoon realizes this, the better for the ROK. He should also realize that the Seoul-Tokyo reconciliation is not in the best interest of the ROK, as the thousands of people protesting against the ROK's move have been saying.

Some Japanese conservative forces claim that Japan's annexation of Korea was legal based on the Japan-Korea Treaty of 1910, while the Japanese government has been insisting that all its colonial era issues from 1910 to 1945 had been settled through the 1965 Treaty on Basic Relations between Japan and the ROK, which led to the establishment of diplomatic ties between the two sides.

The treaty included an agreement in which Japan provided loans to the ROK, which in Japan's views covered the compensation for wartime forced labor.

Moreover, the Kishida administration aims to build Japan into a global military power with the help of the US, and Japan's attitude toward the ROK has always been condescending. So if the US-Japan-ROK alliance triggers a confrontation in Northeast Asia, the ROK would perhaps suffer the most as the spearhead of the trilateral alliance.

Given the interdependence of the Chinese and ROK economies, the latter may suffer huge economic losses by following the US' diktat and decoupling with China, not least because China is its biggest trading partner. This could be the tragic reality for the ROK also because the Joe Biden administration has enacted the CHIPS and Science Act and the Inflation Reduction Act to "reshore" cutting-edge technologies and manufacturing in order to maintain the US' competitive advantage, rather than helping its allies — and also because the US does not want to lose the Chinese market, despite its "contain-China" strategy.

The views don't necessarily reflect those of China Daily.