HIROSHIMA: Just a day after China expressed strong dissatisfaction over G7 ‘insistence on manipulating China-related issues’, US President Joe Biden on Sunday said the Group of Seven nations agreed a united approach to China that called for diversifying supply chains to reduce dependence on one country, and hinted that he could speak with China’s president soon.

“We’re not looking to decouple from China. We’re looking to de-risk and diversify our relationship with China,” Biden clarified at a presser before his departure after attending a three-day summit with G7 leaders.

However, he said G7 nations were more unified than ever in terms of “resisting economic coercion together and countering harmful practices that hurt our workers”. Biden also suggested a shift in US-China relations could occur soon, echoing his comment to reporters. “In terms of talking with them, I think you’re going to see that thaw very shortly,” he said.

On the issue of tensions between China and Taiwan, Biden said there was a clear understanding among most of the allies that if China were to act unilaterally against the self-governed island Taiwan, there would be a response.

Richest nations stand with Ukraine in opposing the idea of war becoming a ‘frozen conflict’

“We’re not going to tell China what they can do,” he said, “But in the meantime we’re going to put Taiwan in a position where they can defend themselves.”

‘Frozen’ conflict

On the other hand, in a warning to Russian President Vladimir Putin, G7 leaders said they would not back down from supporting Ukraine.

Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau promised that his country would support Ukraine for as long and as much as necessary.

Biden told G7 leaders Washington supports joint allied training programmes for Ukrainian pilots on F-16s warplanes, although Kyiv has not won commitments for delivery of the fighter jets.

The potential for such training on US-made F-16s was a message to Russia that it should not expect to succeed in its invasion by prolonging conflict, German Chancellor Olaf Scholz said.

British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak said training would start this summer and Ukraine would get the air force it needed for the future.

Also, Scholz and French President Emmanuel Macron appeared to stand with Ukraine in opposing any notion of the war becoming a ‘frozen conflict’, or any proposal for peace talks without Russian troops withdrawing.

At the summit, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, who arrived on a French government plane to canvass for greater support against Russia’s invasion, denied that Bakhmut was “occupied” by Moscow, though the head of Russia’s Wagner mercenary group claimed Russian fighters had taken control of the eastern city “to the last centimetre”.

While claiming that Bakhmut had not fallen to Moscow, Zelensky, however, compared the “absolute total destruction” in Bakhmut to the devastation in Hiroshima when the US dropped an atomic bomb on the Japanese city in 1945. “The photos of Hiroshima remind me of Bakhmut. There is absolutely nothing alive. All the buildings are destroyed,” he said.

He claimed that Japan rebuilding of Hiroshima inspired him to rebuild Ukrainian cities and towns destroyed in the invasion. “Now, Hiroshima is rebuilt,” he said. “We dream of rebuilding all our cities that are now in ruins and every village where not a single house is left after Russian strikes.”

Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, who has accused the West of “encouraging the war”, did not meet his Ukrainian counterpart.

Published in Dawn, May 22nd, 2023