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Leaders of the G7 summit meet on June 11, 2021 in Carbis Bay, Cornwall. (WPA Pool/Getty Images)
As the world’s leading democracies attend the G7 summit in the UK, they will discuss an array of challenges from climate change to COVAX. But beyond the photo ops and dinner with the Queen, this coalition has an opportunity to enforce multilateral accountability on two of the most pressing issues of our time: investigating the Chinese Communist Party’s initial COVID-19 cover-up; and the Nord Stream 2 pipeline project that threatens to weaken Europe’s hand in confronting Russia on human rights and corruption.
In the Washington Post, Hudson Distinguished Fellow Mike Pompeo and Senior Vice President Scooter Libby highlight President Biden's diplomatic opportunity to lead an international coalition to investigate the origins of COVID-19. In National Review, Hudson Senior Fellow David Asher expands on the advantages of a G7-led investigation, including the world-class intelligence services and medical research guidance that Japan, Germany, France, and Italy could offer.
For further insight on the Nord Stream 2 natural gas pipeline and its geopolitical implications, join Hudson's Rebeccah Heinrichs and Peter Rough next week as they discuss the future of the pipeline with Polish Institute of International Affairs' Senior Analyst Bartosz Bieliszczuk.
Key Takeaways
Featured quotes from Mike Pompeo and Scooter Libby's Washington Post op-ed, "China’s COVID Wrongdoing Warrants Punishment by a Biden-Led Coalition"
1. The CCP has yet to account for its early handling of the COVID-19 outbreak:
The bill of particulars against the CCP begins with the overwhelming evidence that for weeks in late 2019 and early 2020, as the coronavirus was loose in China and people fell ill, Beijing covered up its dangers, exponentially accelerating international harm. Even as CCP leaders eventually imposed domestic restrictions, they allowed unwitting travelers to visit infected zones and then spread disease and death abroad.
No responsible state would have behaved so badly, as most democratic world leaders would privately acknowledge. Yet they hesitate to say so publicly, no doubt aware of what happened last spring when the Australian government urged an independent inquiry into covid-19’s origins: Beijing instantly retaliated with punitive trade sanctions.
2. Leading democracies should form a coalition to hold China accountable and reduce the risk of future pandemics:
The leading democracies must act together. Their great economic power could do much to persuade China to curb its dangerous viral research activities, cooperate with the investigation of the coronavirus’s origins and, over time, pay some measure of the pandemic’s damages to other nations…
The Biden-led coalition would need to ready calibrated unilateral and multilateral measures against the CCP leadership and Chinese entities. If the CCP will not act responsibly toward the world, the world should not protect CCP leaders’ assets hidden abroad. The world should enforce claims against China’s state-owned enterprises and improper commercial activities, and curtail preferential treatment of Chinese entities. Such measures could be phased in to give diplomacy time. New policies, new agreements or even new laws may be needed.
3. The U.S. and coalition members should prepare for CCP retaliation targeting vulnerable supply chains:
The CCP would surely retaliate harshly. It might disrupt supply chains and punish people and companies most likely to unravel the democratic alliance. Like China, we have vulnerabilities—including our own supply chains—some of which we should urgently address. Finding ways to deflect the blows from China’s response would be the most demanding part of Biden’s diplomatic challenge.
The CCP has benefited enormously from access to an orderly world. Having thrown that world into disorder through its misconduct, China could have tried to right matters by embracing full disclosure and an international investigation into what went wrong. Instead, when Biden announced his directive to the U.S. intelligence community, Beijing responded with scorn.
Quotes have been edited for length and clarity.
Go Deeper
World Leaders Must Press for Answers on COVID-19 Origins
G7 leaders have an opportunity and an obligation to conduct a joint investigation into the origins of COVID-19, writes David Asher in the National Review. A G7 investigation could illuminate not only the scientific evidence for the origins of the pandemic, but address China’s documented violations of International Health Regulations and ensure the Chinese military's compliance with the peaceful purposes clause of the Biological Weapons Convention.
Making a Killing | Ep. 9: Biden Declares War on Kleptocracy + Leonid Volkov on Corruption in Russia
In advance of President Biden's meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin in Geneva next week, Making a Killing co-host and Hudson Adjunct Fellow Paul Massaro interviewed Leonid Volkov, chief of staff to Russian anti-corruption leader Alexei Navalny. Check out the podcast to hear the latest on Navalny's imprisonment and current health, the role of illicit funds in spreading kleptocracy beyond Russia's borders, and how the West can ensure that new technology platforms do not become enablers of corruption.
Putting Kleptocracy in the Crosshairs
In a major gain for anti-corruption efforts worldwide, the U.S. Congress has launched a bipartisan Caucus Against Foreign Corruption and Kleptocracy. Hudson Research Fellow Nate Sibley was invited to address the inaugural meeting of the caucus. While the U.S. has spearheaded efforts to weaken global kleptocracy, Sibley notes, much works remains to be done to support populations whose impoverishment at the hands of kleptocrats has made them disillusioned with America’s promise of democracy.
