G7 Summit Focuses on Threats From China, War in Ukraine |
The final communiqué of this year’s Group of Seven (G7) summit, which ended yesterday in Hiroshima, Japan, mentioned China twenty times (Reuters), up from fourteen mentions in 2022. Its warnings about economic coercion and human rights abuses by China prompted Beijing’s foreign ministry to voice opposition to the statement and summon the Japanese ambassador. Additionally, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy attended the summit and discussed the war in Ukraine (Nikkei) with leaders from the lower-income nations often referred to as the Global South, including Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi.
As he concluded the summit, U.S. President Joe Biden said he expects a thaw in U.S.-China relations (FT) “very shortly.” However, Washington signaled that it will still seek to counter Beijing’s influence in the Indo-Pacific: U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken traveled to Papua New Guinea after the G7 to sign a new defense pact (CNN) with the country.
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“A surprise [summit visit by Ukraine’s] president, Volodymyr Zelenskiy, gave him a chance to appeal to leaders from emerging economies who were also invited to the summit and have taken a neutral — and at times ambivalent — stance on the war,” Bloomberg’s Samy Adghirni, Brian Platt, and Alex Wickham write.
“An early test [of a possible U.S.-China thaw] will come this week when China’s commerce minister Wang Wentao is due to become the first senior Chinese official to visit Washington since 2020,” the Financial Times’ Demetri Sevastopulo, Eleanor Olcott, and Joe Leahy write. “Some US and China experts question if high-level engagement will have much impact given that Washington and Beijing appear committed to maintaining policies that the other opposes.”
For Foreign Affairs, Japanese Prime Minister Kishida Fumio outlines Japan’s approach to reducing global instability.
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Chinese Government Bans Some Purchases From U.S. Chipmaker Micron |
Beijing said it would block certain infrastructure operators from buying products from Micron after the company failed a Chinese security review (Nikkei). South Korean chipmakers Samsung and SK Hynix could step in to take over Micron’s Chinese market, but Washington has warned them against doing so. |
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Growing Numbers of Afghans Seek to Reach U.S. Through Southern Border |
Since the start of 2022, more than 3,600 Afghans have crossed the jungle border between Colombia and Panama on their journey north, the New York Times reported. Many had partnered with Western forces in Afghanistan before fleeing the country after the Taliban took over in 2021.
India: The Delhi High Court summoned the BBC (The Hindu, PTI) to appear on defamation charges related to a documentary series about Prime Minister Modi.
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Middle East and North Africa |
U.S. Rebukes Israel for Push to Reestablish Settlements in Northern West Bank |
A U.S. State Department spokesperson said Washington is “deeply troubled” (AP) by Israel’s move to repopulate the outpost of Homesh, where Jewish settlements were dismantled in 2005. The United States and most other countries consider Israeli settlements in the occupied West Bank to be illegal. This Backgrounder by Kali Robinson unpacks U.S. policy on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Iran: President Ebrahim Raisi named Ali Akbar Ahmadian (AFP), a general in the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), as head of Iran’s top security body. He will replace Ali Shamkhani, who helped mediate the country’s rapprochement with Saudi Arabia last month.
This Backgrounder looks at the IRGC.
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Sudan’s Warring Factions Agree to Cease-Fire Mediated by U.S., Saudi Arabia |
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Ukraine Launches Attacks on Bakhmut’s Outskirts After Russia Claims It Took City |
Russian forces said they captured the Ukrainian city of Bakhmut over the weekend, but Ukrainian officials disputed the claim and said their forces were advancing (Reuters) on the city’s northern and southern outskirts today. For Foreign Affairs, Andrei Soldatov and Irina Borogan explain how fighting in Bakhmut has exposed tensions between Russian President Vladimir Putin and the private military force Wagner Group. Brussels: The European Union fined (FT) Facebook’s owner, Meta, nearly $1.5 billion for violating data privacy laws, the bloc’s largest-ever penalty for privacy violations. The company criticized the decision and is expected to appeal it. |
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NYT: Mexico’s Top Human Rights Official Was Hacked |
The official was targeted using Pegasus spyware, the New York Times reported. Mexico’s military is reportedly the only group in the country with access to the technology. The official had investigated security forces’ abuses of power in recent years.
Canada: Wildfires in the province of Alberta have forced more than ten thousand people to evacuate (CBC) their homes as of yesterday.
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Biden: U.S. Would Help Train Ukrainian Pilots to Use F-16 Fighter Jets |
President Biden did not offer details on when the jets would be delivered by Western countries but said President Zelenskyy confirmed that they would not be used (Reuters) to enter Russian territory. |
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Council on Foreign Relations |
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