Hello, from Brussels. In the next few days, the eyes of the global governance community are focused on Cornwall, and you rarely say that. The picturesque and rugged southwestern England resort “Maine, Britain” has undoubtedly been called the site of the G7 summit by American publications. The usual prisoners — Britain, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, Canada, and the United States — joined Australia, South Korea, India, and South Africa this time, allowing them to retain their status as a group of democracies, despite the uneven quality . The main content of today is to doubt whether the G7 can seize the opportunity to return to the game of global governance.

In other over-hyped news, yesterday’s meeting of World Trade Organization ambassadors discussed the patent exemption issue, which the United States strongly supports.Support us increasingly believing that Washington is doing this All for showing off A Geneva trade official stated that the United States pointed out at the meeting that the preliminary negotiating text submitted by India and South Africa was too broad to reach a consensus (We would say), and once again asked other members to submit proposals. It did not say submit your own. This will quickly become monotonous.

Concession waters Focusing on the delays of a major port in China that emerged as a result of the Covid-19 outbreak in the country.

The cradle of cats’ interest in data, China and 5G

G7 has a somewhat shabby atmosphere in the global governance stage. After ten years of dust accumulated in the prop box, it was dragged to a place near the spotlight. G7/G8 (Russia was unwisely invited to join the optimism of the Clinton-Yeltsin era in 1998) was completely overshadowed by the Group of Twenty (G20) during the global financial crisis on the grounds that you need heavyweights in emerging markets. in the room.

Since 2008, the authority of G7 has shrunk sharply. It mainly talks about the worries of the rich world, such as development aid ironically, and rather embarrassingly having to expel Russia to restore its democratic credibility. (Other attempts to create such associations, such as Democratic League The ideas put forward by the late John McCain have nowhere to go. )

One of the successes that the G7 has achieved this year is the global minimum corporate tax agreement. Reflects the facts Rich countries are home to most of the world’s private multinational companies. Most issues in finance and trade are not dominated by G7 economies in the same way.

However, nothing is more like a common threat to unity. China is here, and there are widespread concerns about regional military aggression, trade-distorting state capitalism, active technology transfer, and determined attempts to dominate global technology standards and systems. Is it time to reboot?

The problem is that the G7+4 Venn diagram shows a group of countries that are ready to take action on various issues, each time excluding the main players-and some countries completely excluded from the general scope.

Take 5G as an example. The U.S., U.K., and Australia are aggressive towards China and prohibit Huawei participates In their system. But Huawei is popular in South Africa, while Canada, India, Japan and France are less resolutely opposed to its participation in 5G networks, and Germany has actually pushed this decision into the future. In terms of data regulation, the United States, Japan, and the United Kingdom are open to encouraging the free flow of personal information across borders: the European Union wants to strengthen controls.

In terms of trade, South Africa and India form an awkward team in the WTO, and most of the time they are at odds with most wealthy countries. The European Union collectively, Germany in particular, has made it clear that they will not join the aggressive anti-China trade alliance headed by the United States. Although France, Germany, and Italy are powerful participants in the European trade debate, even if they reach an agreement, the entire EU will not be finally realized.

There is a similar NFI Use the G7 as a forum to discuss the intersection of trade, investment, and security.There have been various proposals in the past regarding the transformation of the Five Eyes Intelligence Sharing Network (US, UK, Canada, Australia and New Zealand) plus reliable allies into an alliance against Chinese pressure, including A plan in the UK Create a “D10” grouping on 5G issues.But New Zealand’s fifth eye will not appear in Cornwall and Jacinda Arden’s government Rebelled Turn this group into a broader geostrategic formation against China.

It takes a very skilled and credible summit host to weave a stable and extensive alliance from this cradle of cats with different legitimacy, representativeness and policy orientation. Unfortunately, the meeting will be chaired by Boris Johnson.

The UK has low credibility on some core issues such as climate change.Johnson recently call A “Marshall Plan”, a squeaky old metaphor traditionally Get out By the United Kingdom (especially Former prime minister Gordon Brown) Once Every few years with especially When it hosted the summit. This time, the British Marshall Plan is about economic decarbonization. Question: Johnson has announced more ambitious targets for reducing carbon emissions in the UK, but has done little to achieve these targets.Taking into account the risks of the British Yellow vest Rebellion, he has Refrigerated fuel tax Say it again: 11 years have passed since the last increase.

In other hypocritical news, Britain’s failure to adhere to the Northern Ireland agreement after Brexit weakened its support for a rules-based international order and angered the three European Union Group of Seven members and the United States. Proposed On the edge of the summit.

Johnson’s most likely outcome is bilateral Anglo-Australia The trade agreement may be agreed in principle next week. This will involve violating promises to British farmers to protect them from fierce overseas competition and will hardly increase Britain’s gross domestic product.Johnson’s famous act of paying tribute to Winston Churchill is not entirely consistent with the original work, even though he Shameless appropriation the term”Atlantic Charter“For U.S. bilateral relations: This kind of small-caliber global governance is not completely equivalent to appearing in Yalta Conference [FightsidebysidewithRooseveltandStalinin1945[1945??????????????

The more you get bored with the ideas of this big democratic alliance, the softer they will appear. For governments in democracies and wealthy countries, it is more practical to form smaller temporary alliances on specific topics than to try to build a common front on global issues. There is no doubt that this year’s G7 will become one of the most meaningful meetings in the past decade. But this is indeed a very low threshold.

Concession waters

The British “Financial Times” reported yesterday that China’s new crown pneumonia epidemic that began in late May was Accumulate more problems About the troubled global shipping industry. The industry — already hit by insufficient production capacity, strong demand for consumer durables, and the backlog of cleanup work related to the Suez Canal blockade — is now facing severe delays at China’s east coast ports.

Project44 is a platform for shippers and logistics providers that has data on the exact time of these stays in Shenzhen. Quite amazing. Claire Jones

Trade ties

Joe Biden Want to use G7 summit Encourage allies to join the U.S. Take a hard line against Beijing(For the above reasons, we suspect that the US government will make a lot of progress in this area.) George Parker of the British Financial Times, who has ties to neighboring Devon, Report This The inequality behind the idyllic Cornish venue For the summit.

More about Northern Ireland Agreement. Biden Will push After the end of Brexit, Britain had a fierce confrontation with the European Union on the issue of Northern Ireland.

Australia call WTO reform Counterattack China.

Dan Drezner, a perennial optimist of global governance, debate This Positive case of G7. (Washington Post, U.S. dollars)

This Entrance China’s Great Wall Motors and Taiwan’s Foxconn entering Thailand to produce electric vehicles will intensify competition in Thailand Thailand car market, Correct Japanese car manufacturer Has dominated the local market for decades. (Nikkei Index, USD) Alan Beatty and Claire Jones