And the announcement of a US$600 billion Partnership for Global Infrastructure and Investment to compete with China’s Belt and Road Initiative in developing countries smacks of desperation rather than a credible alternative. The partnership is significantly less ambitious than its failed predecessor, the Build Back Better World Partnership, announced at last year’s G7 summit.
Perhaps most telling of the limits of the G7 to model global governance in their own image was the failure of reaching an agreement with other countries invited to the summit on the future direction of international order.
If there was any hope that the G7 and the EU would convince the leaders of Argentina, India, Indonesia, Senegal and South Africa to take a clear stance against Russian and Chinese attempts to destroy the current international order, the fairly vacuous “Resilient Democracies Statement” made short shrift of them. It failed to mention the war in Ukraine even once.
GROWNG DIVIDE BETWEEN RICH LIBERAL DEMOCRACIES AND THE REST OF THE WORLD
This growing divide between a small group of rich liberal democracies and the rest of the world was also evident at the NATO summit in Madrid, albeit in a different way.
Already in his opening statement, NATO secretary general, Jens Stoltenberg, made it clear that this summit would “take important decisions to strengthen NATO in a more dangerous and competitive world where authoritarian regimes like Russia and China are openly challenging the rules-based international order”.
These have included the adoption of a new strategic concept, the increase of high-readiness troops from currently 40,000 to 300,000 by next year, and an invitation to Finland and Sweden to join the alliance.
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