by Irfan Mahar
The G7 countries, namely Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, the UK and the US, gathered in Cornwall (UK) for “The G7 Leaders’ Summit 2021” from June 11 to 13 which is presided over by the UK and aimed at uniting the world’s leading democracies to help the world build back better. The G7 countries shown their commitment to initiate the Build Back Better World (B3W) partnership “a values-driven, high-standard, and transparent infrastructure partnership led by the world’s richest democratic nations to help the developing world which has been exacerbated by the COVID-19 pandemic”. Furthermore, the seven richest democratic nations of the world have given an assurance to invest up to $40 trillion by 2035 to plug the infrastructure gap in low and middle-income countries all around the world. Through B3W, all partner countries will coordinate in four areas of focus viz. climate, health and health security, digital technology, and gender equity and equality with the help of financial institutions. As far as the scope of B3W is concerned, its scope is global in nature, such as from Latin America and the Caribbean to Africa to the “Indo-Pacific”.
Moreover, US President Joe Biden’s first and foremost reason behind meeting the G7 leaders was to discuss the strategic competition with China as well as taking their commitment for concrete actions against Beijing. According to US President Joe Biden, the G7 countries’ B3W partnership offered an alternative to China’s Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), and the B3W plan would be greener and more inclusive. Moreover, it will endorse and brand new vision for funding infrastructure projects in developing countries. The new frontier of rivalry between the US and China is started by Washington through championing the Build Back Better World (B3W) partnership along with six other rich countries of the world. Meanwhile, G7 member countries attempt to rival China with an infrastructure project. In this regard, during the G7 Summit, American President Joe Biden urged G7 nations to compete economically with China and emphasized the need to counter the authoritarian threats from Beijing. While on the other hand, China has responded and criticized G7 plans to create a green belt and road plan to counter China’s influence. Beijing explained that the days are gone when global decisions were dictated by a small group of countries. Furthermore, it says such doubts betray the “imperial hangover” of many Western powers that humiliated China as well as other countries for centuries.
In the meantime, the US has lost its credibility around the globe because of its warmongering nature; therefore, most of the countries consider B3W merely political propaganda against China that aims at notorious and dangerous means to achieve political ends. Moreover, the US is going to use the G7 nations against China, but the result of this block will not only prove harmful for Washington but also for other G7 nations which are the partners in this scheme. In this regard, these countries have to ponder over such strategies of the US where it only follows its interest at the expense of other nations. Moreover, through the period of time because of the bad policies of the US, it has lost its credibility, particularly in developing countries, in this regard, no one is going to trust whatever plans Washington offers. Likewise, looking over the US engagement in Afghanistan from where it has announced its withdrawal without any settled accord among stakeholders has increased the security concerns for the region. It also shows Washington as a defeated country that risks other nations as well and pushes them into danger to get its interests. Meanwhile, Pakistan has also refused the US for air bases because of the human and financial loss suffered by Islamabad in the war on terror by making an alliance with the US.
Meanwhile, the recent B3W game is played at the hands of America because it has been trying to counter and contain China for a long time but has failed at each strategy against rising China. The US has announced and adopted multiple policies and actions to counter China to save its dominant status. But the failure of the policies and actions proved that those were built up upon false, biased and treacherous intentions. There are multiple factors behind the failure of Washington’s policies and actions against Beijing in which lack of originality, credibility and authenticity is one of the top factors. Initially, the US tries its best to counter and rival China on its own by introducing various policies such as the US containment policy of China, Quadrilateral Security Dialogue (QSD or Quad) and President Biden policy of dubbing China as a strategic rival. All these policies were aimed at countering China, but when it failed in all strategies, now it wants the powerful nations to side with it for countering Beijing together. In this regard, as a result of American propaganda against China, Beijing needs to counter this block through engaging, cooperating as well as making new blocks with countries such as Russia, Iran, Pakistan and some Middle Eastern and African nations.
The Writer teaches at the Department of Defense and Strategic Studies, Quaid-i-Azam University Islamabad, Pakistan.