China calls in Japanese ambassador after G7 summit

2023-05-22 04:36:21

Deputy Foreign Minister Sun Weidong summoned the Japanese ambassador to express his protest at the “hype about China-related issues” at the weekend summit, the ministry said on Sunday. The Chinese embassy in London also reacted angrily.

Japan’s actions are detrimental to China’s sovereignty, security and development interests, and China is “deeply dissatisfied and strongly opposed”. Japanese Ambassador to China Hideo Tarumi said it “goes without saying that the G7 will refer to issues of common concern as they have done in the past and will continue to do so as long as China does not change its behavior. If China demands not to address the issues, the People’s Republic must first take positive steps to address the “worrying issues”.

The group expressed concerns about rising tensions in the East and South China Seas and the human rights situation in China, including in Tibet and Xinjiang. The Chinese embassy in Britain had previously urged the government in London to stop “slandering and denigrating China” in order to avert further damage to relations between the two countries.

Relations between China and Britain have also cooled further after the G7 summit in Japan. The Chinese Embassy in Britain, responding to comments by British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak on Sunday, urged the government in London to stop slandering and slandering China to avoid further damage to China-Britain relations.

After a summit of the Group of Seven (G7), Sunak said that China poses the greatest challenge to the world’s security and prosperity, but that leading economies should not isolate themselves from China. “The statements made by the British side in this regard are nothing more than parroting the words of others and constitute malicious slanders that do not do justice to the facts. China firmly rejects this and strongly condemns it,” the embassy statement said.

In the G7 statement, the passages related to China were less harsh than many expected. A decoupling of the economy and slowing down the development of China are not a goal of the West, it is emphasized. However, the G7 are committed to reducing risks, such as overdependence on raw materials, and want to promote diversification. The group of the seven leading western industrial countries includes the USA, Japan, Germany, France, Great Britain, Italy and Canada. Great Britain had already realigned its foreign policy in March in view of the growing tensions with China.