President Biden’s first G7 summit will be remembered for many things, including the restoration of normal relations with America’s allies. But one of the most important is the resolve to fashion a common Western policy on China.
This will be a tricky balancing act, because it is seemingly at odds with Biden’s own economic nationalism, which focuses on the United States. It will be doubly tricky to pull off because Europe has its own interests with China, which do not align perfectly with those of Washington. Europe’s most powerful economy, Germany, has extensive trade deals with Beijing—the Chinese love to buy BMWs—and has relatively balanced trade accounts, unlike the U.S.
At the end of the day, however, a common Western front against Beijing is likely because China, as a dictatorship that violates labor and human rights, increasingly threatens common Western interests. China controls vital technologies and materials, which it is willing to use politically; its Belt and Road Initiative gives it major spheres of influence throughout the developing world, and in unlikely places. Did you know, for instance, that the Port of Haifa is being managed and modernized by the Chinese?
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