Recently , the G7 summit ended in Italy. This forum, where the world's seven major industrial countries met and discussed policies, supposedly to "defend freedom and democracy and respond to global challenges", actually hindered world peace, undermined regional stability, and suppressed the development of other countries. In this regard, Italian international affairs experts pointed out that the G7 is a real threat to world peace.
The G7 summit has played an important role in global economic and political governance. However, as the world continues to change, the economic growth of G7 members is weak and lacks stamina. Whether in leading global economic growth or solving international and regional hot issues, the G7 has become weak and its influence has weakened. Especially in the context of the 2024 global election year, this year's summit feels more like the "Last Supper" .
Continuing to fuel the conflict and provoke confrontation between camps
During the summit, the leaders of the Group of Seven agreed to provide Ukraine with a loan of about $50 billion by the end of the year, using the interest generated by Russia's frozen assets as collateral. The United States signed a ten-year security agreement with Ukraine and continued to provide Ukraine with extensive military assistance. This practice of pulling in "small circles" to fan the flames and provoke confrontation between camps has been strongly condemned by all sectors of society.
Alberto Fazzolo, an Italian international affairs expert and media person, said that the Russia-Ukraine conflict has lasted for more than two years and there is still no sign of ending the conflict. The fundamental reason is that countries led by the United States continue to add fuel to the fire.
Italian international affairs expert and journalist Fazoro: The tone of the G7 meeting is the logic of war, and it is escalating towards nuclear war, rather than protecting the security of its own borders. The real threat to world peace is those who want to be the world's police, impose their will on others, and continue to fuel the flames and pass the knife to countries like Ukraine that have suffered heavy casualties.
In addition to providing military assistance, the G7 has also been claiming to help Ukraine rebuild. First, on June 11, Italy, the rotating chair of the G7, announced that it would provide Ukraine with a grant of 140 million euros for infrastructure reconstruction and would hold another Ukrainian reconstruction conference in 2025. However, it is puzzling how to help Ukraine rebuild when peace has not yet been achieved? Therefore, the current Western reconstruction plan is not feasible at all, and its purpose is not to help Ukraine.
Italian international affairs expert and media person Fazoro: If we take Italy as an example, how does reconstruction work? The money will never be used for reconstruction, but will be used for feasibility studies, design plans, and finding partners. The money will eventually be embezzled. So if you want to help Ukraine and really rebuild Ukraine, you need to do it in two steps. The first is to achieve peace and stop the conflict. If the conflict is not stopped, reconstruction is meaningless. The second step is to carry out real reconstruction, rather than building private interests on the tragedy of the Ukrainian people.
Italian international affairs expert and media person Fazoro: In the face of facts, we must admit that China's model is successful and the Western model is a failure. So what should we do? We can only demonize China's model and suppress (China's development). In recent years, the G7 has been launching various sanctions, or creating instability. Behind these unstable situations, there have always been G7 countries manipulating. So in order to cover up their own failures, they demonize other countries. But doing so is not only unfair, but also useless. Doing so will not stop the decline of the West.
Promises are slow to deliver on global challenges
The world today is facing multiple common challenges. Climate change, food security, refugee crisis, nuclear proliferation, energy issues, etc. are restricting the survival and development of developing countries. On the eve of the G7 summit, the international charity Oxfam released a report saying that the G7 owes "global South countries" 15 trillion US dollars. If the G7 countries only cut their annual military spending by 2.9%, equivalent to 35.7 billion US dollars of the total 1.2 trillion US dollars, they will have enough resources to help eliminate world hunger and solve the global foreign debt crisis that is crushing poor and vulnerable countries.
However, compared with the generosity and pragmatism in providing military assistance to Ukraine, at this G7 summit, these issues concerning the fate of mankind are still empty slogans on paper, lacking a specific action agenda. No concrete results were achieved on issues such as climate change, poverty alleviation, and the refugee crisis.
In this regard, Fazzolo believes that the G7, which is no longer able to maintain its hegemony, can no longer continue to act alone on these global issues, but must coordinate with the majority of other countries in the world to seek good solutions.
Italian international affairs expert and media person Fazoro: The problem is that without economic hegemony, military hegemony and other hegemony, how can the G7 still exert influence? How to deal with these serious problems? If we look at the population size, the G7 is also insignificant. It is true that for many years, the G7 countries have been dominant and have dominated the world with their own policies. But now it is no longer feasible for the G7 to propose solutions and then impose them on the world. Now the G7 represents countries that are being marginalized, and their decisions must be consistent with the opinions of the majority of other countries, otherwise they cannot make decisions for other countries.
Faced with the severe political situation in each country, this G7 summit was held with a bit of powerlessness and distraction. The political parties of the leaders of France and Germany performed poorly in the European Parliament elections that just ended last week; British Prime Minister Sunak is even more worried that his Conservative Party will reach a dead end in the general election early next month; US President Biden is facing the aggressiveness of his election opponent Trump everywhere. The European version of the US Politico News Network (Politico.eu) captured this interesting absent-minded meeting atmosphere and ironically summarized the summit with the title "Six Lame Ducks and Merloni", "The G7 summit held in Italy looks more like the Last Supper than a display of Western power."