The Russia-China bond and the West’s sensitivity to its derivative security, energy, and economic risks were the main factors that shaped the outcomes of the G7 summit.
While the $50 billion Extraordinary Revenue Acceleration Loans for Ukraine were the biggest actions taken against Russia, the foregrounding of Africa took centre stage at the summit. The new policies launched in the G7’s African outreach are rooted in Europe’s need to diversify its energy sources, increase developmental partnerships in Africa where China has established its Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), and address the push factors causing African immigration into Europe. The Energy for Growth in Africa initiative was launched to invest in sustainable industrial and infrastructural development in African countries and will provide Africa with an alternative investor to China. Though the G7 has become sensitized to the importance of investing in Africa for countering a rising China, the Western countries will need a stronger investment program that targets large infrastructure projects, which is the core competency of the BRI. The G7 faces a contest with China within the global aid architecture as China has become the largest bilateral lender to developing countries on both concessional and non-concessional terms. The Western democracies also highlighted the Kremlin-backed Wagner Group and other Russia-backed forces as having a destabilizing effect on a democratic Africa.
The Energy for Growth in Africa initiative was launched to invest in sustainable industrial and infrastructural development in African countries and will provide Africa with an alternative investor to China.
The summit also launched the Semiconductors G7 Point of Contact Group, which gained centrality after China’s recent encirclement exercise around Taiwan, the hub of semiconductor manufacturing, to assert its dominance over the island. As the insecurity around a militarizing China in the Indo-Pacific remains a core common concern between the G7 and India, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s participated in bilateral discussions and the summit’s Outreach session. Supply chain resilience was a common priority, and the G7 showed formal commitment to promote the India-Middle East-Europe Economic Corridor where India remains an important stakeholder.
The organizational apparatus and operational domains of the G7 have continued to evolve since 1975 and are no longer centred around global financial governance. The Russia-Ukraine war, security in the Indo-Pacific and the Red Sea, Iran’s assertive behavior, and the conflict in west Asia remain deeply enmeshed considerations for the G7. Yet the grouping’s evolution to maintain relevance for the next fifty years demands that Western democracies learn to operate in such a contested matrix without creating deadlocks.
For the G7, implementing its policies on financing developing and emerging countries, especially in Africa, in a manner that allows them interoperability and agency is crucial. While geopolitical contestation is inherently polarizing, the G7 should not allow the rest of the world to get entangled in this polarization as the developmental finance starts flowing into Africa. India remains one of the leading voices of and mediators with the developing and emerging world, as it balances its interests by closely engaging with the G7 while simultaneously mechanising the BRICS+ (the economic grouping of Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa, which recently admitted Egypt, Ethiopia, Iran, and the United Arab Emirates). To weather a contested global order, the G7 should calibrate itself to deal with such strategic interoperability with the rest of the world.
While geopolitical contestation is inherently polarizing, the G7 should not allow the rest of the world to get entangled in this polarization as the developmental finance starts flowing into Africa.
However, the G7 also faces challenges from within that could undermine the grouping’s policy continuity in the near future. The prospect of a United States run by former President Donald Trump, its effects on the geopolitical stalemates around the world, and the membership expansion of the G7 are some internal questions that could gain prominence. In any case, it will be the ability of the collective G7 to work around contestation that will sustain its multilateral heft and legitimacy in the long run.
This commentary originally appeared in Council of Councils.
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Professor Harsh V. Pant is Vice President – Studies and Foreign Policy at Observer Research Foundation, New Delhi. He is a Professor of International Relations ...
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Angad Singh Brar is a Research Assistant at Observer Research Foundation, New Delhi. His research focuses on issues of global governance, multilateralism, India’s engagement of ...
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