By Li Ping

The Group of Seven (G7) concluded a three-day summit in the United Kingdom with a joint statement made up of about 24,000 words, of which 300 words were used directly to discuss China, including non-market policies, the origin of Covid, human rights in Xinjiang, Hong Kong’s autonomy and peace in the Taiwan Strait. Although it was a rare articulation of position, it was relatively few words which did not include specific corresponding strategies. There is no knowing of whether it would be all talk and no action, as questioned by Hong Kong netizens. However, the CCP seemed to be quite triggered, and lambasted the G7 for confounding black and white and forcing its interference and evil intents. On the Internet, there are clamors of the new Eight-Nation Alliance, five swords pointing toward China, and that they cannot wait to start a war with the Western powers to show some muscles of the great rejuvenation of the Chinese nation.

The China policy mentioned in the G7 communique is based on economic competition rather than political alliance and confrontation. The five swords, as described by Chinese media, include the criticism towards China’s implementation of non-market policies and measures; the call for the second phase of virus origin tracing; the call on China to respect human rights and freedom in Xinjiang; the call on China to respect Hong Kong’s rights, freedom, and high degree of autonomy as stipulated in the Sino-British Joint Declaration and Basic Law; and the emphasis on the importance of peace and stability in the Taiwan Strait and to encourage a peaceful resolution of the cross-strait issue.

Of the five swords that are pointing toward China, the only critical one was on economic policies. The countermeasures, including expanding domestic infrastructure, Build Back Better (B3W), and G7 Collaboration on Digital Technical Standards, have been mocked by Chinese media and netizens as copying China’s domestic consumption (“internal circulation”), Belt and Road, and Made in China 2025. As for tracing the source of the virus, respecting human rights, safeguarding cross-strait peace are all but general principles. The louder the CCP opposes, the more obvious it is showing its guilty conscience. The closer the centenary of the establishment of the CCP is approaching, the guiltier it is.

According to a report by a state mouthpiece, a gas explosion in a market in Shiyan City, Hubei Province caused 25 deaths and 37 serious injuries. CCP’s General Secretary Xi Jinping immediately issued “important instructions” on saving people and rehabilitating the aftermath. He ordered various departments across the country to up their political sensitivity and “maintain the overall stability of society and create a good atmosphere in preparation for the centenary of the founding of the CCP.” Even a gas explosion could involve political sensitivity, no wonder even an unplanned public activity, such as the commemoration of a middle school student who fell to his death was accused of being related to “foreign forces”. This has also become the shortcut for government officials, in the process of raising political sensitivity, to avoid accountability.

Today, G7 is the biggest foreign force that has openly pointed five swords toward China. If the CCP officials, media, and the fifty-cent army do not display absolute righteous indignation and oppose them to death, wouldn’t that be a failure in political sensitivity and the creation of a good vibe for the CCP’s establishment centenary? In as early as May, G7 foreign ministers met to issue a joint statement concerning China’s human rights issues, cross-strait conflicts, and equality, to which the Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs lambasted as group politics that reverses history and points fingers, criticizes and interferes with other countries as if they are superior. Mouthpiece Global Times published an opinion editorial “Ganging up against China, Russia a nightmare trip for US, West”, slamming the G7 for “playing a strategic game with fire”, and claiming that any military attempts to attack China and Russia will be “like throwing a straw against the wind”.

After the G7 summit joint statement was issued, the Chinese Embassy in the U.K. stepped up to the front line to fight the G7 by issuing a statement to dismantle and counterattack the five swords of the G7 one by one. That statement arrived even before the one from the Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs, and represented the trend of the times and will of the international community to slab the badge of “power politics” on the G7. In comparison, the opinion editorial from Global Times, “G7 communiqué makes a show but Chinese don’t buy it” was a little anti-climatic. Criticizing it as “the most systematic condemnation against China and interference in the country’s affairs by major Western powers”, it also said that “the language of the communiqué was somewhat softer than previous Washington slanders against China”, and did not offer the same impetuous war declarations as before.

However, it is difficult to return to calm once passionate patriotism toward the party and country has been aroused. Since Yang Jiechi solemnly announced in Alaska that “Chinese people don’t buy this,” the G7 summit came up with this again. How would one make the Chinese people buy this? One would think that even Matthew Cheung, who has been praising the CCP for making China great again would not agree with this, right? If the CCP does not defeat by military means the new Eight-Nation Alliance, how could it prove that it is leading the people to wash away the national humiliation of 120 years and appease the “little pinks” in the country, and the Matthew Cheungs in Hong Kong? The G7 may have no intention of fighting, yet the CCP already seems to have the determination to win.

This article is translated from Chinese by Apple Daily.

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