Beijing summons Japanese envoy over ‘anti-China’ G7 summit

China’s Vice Foreign Minister Sun Weidong has summoned the Japanese ambassador to register protests over “hype around China-related issues” at the Group of Seven (G7) summit over the weekend, the foreign ministry said in a statement.

The heads of the world’s richest countries who met in the Japanese city of Hiroshima expressed serious concerns about rising tensions in the East China Sea and the South China Sea as well as voicing concerns about the human rights situations in China, including in Tibet and Xinjiang.Sun said Japan collaborated with the other countries at the G7 summit “in activities and joint declarations … to smear and attack China, grossly interfering in China’s internal affairs, violating the basic principles of international law and the spirit of the four political documents between China and Japan”, referring to the China-Japan Joint Communique of 1972.A joint communique issued by the G7 nations on Saturday singled out China on issues ranging from Taiwan and maritime claims to economic coercion and human rights, underscoring the tensions between Beijing and the group of rich countries which includes the United States.‘Anti-China workshop’
State-backed Chinese newspaper Global Times called the G7 an “anti-China workshop” on Monday.

“The US is pushing hard to weave an anti-China net in the Western world,” the Global Times said in an editorial, titled “G7 has descended into an anti-China workshop”, on Monday.

“This is not just a matter of brutal interference in China’s internal affairs and smearing China, but also an undisguised urge for confrontation between the camps.”

Beijing’s foreign ministry said it firmly opposed the G7 statement and said it had summoned the Japanese ambassador as part of its protest to the summit host.Russia, a close ally of China that was also called out in the G7 statement over its invasion of Ukraine, said the summit was an “incubator” for anti-Russian and anti-Chinese hysteria.

Separately, China’s embassy in the United Kingdom on Sunday urged London to stop slandering China, after British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak said Beijing represents the world’s greatest challenge to security and prosperity.