West joins forces to tackle China’s growing hold over poorer countries

LEADERS of the G7 are to combine forces to combat the growing global might of China by ploughing hundreds of millions of euro into countries at risk of being sucked into Beijing’s sphere of influence.

The British-hosted summit in Cornwall agreed to calls by US president Joe Biden to band together to compete with China, which since 2013 has been using its ‘Belt and Road Initiative’ to finance big projects in poor countries – making them politically and economically indebted to Beijing in the process.

President Biden’s administration secured agreement for a G7 equivalent of the Chinese scheme that will dovetail with moves to tackle climate change.

It came as Washington steps up its rhetoric against China over human rights abuses and the regime’s lack of transparency over the origins of the Covid pandemic.

Under the new scheme, which is being dubbed the ‘Green Belt Initiative’, the countries will form a ‘partnership on green investment’ for developing countries, which the British Government said would offer them a ‘democratic alternative’ to China.

Sources say the plan, called

‘Build Back Better for the World’, after Biden’s election slogan, will finance ‘everything from railways in Africa to wind farms in Asia’ by ‘giving developing countries access to better and faster finance, while accelerating the global shift to renewable energy’.

A source said: ‘It means giving countries an alternative to a totalitarian paymaster.’

Behind the scenes of the summit, president Biden has been urging the rest of the G7 countries to ‘speak out in a single voice’ by including criticism of Chinese human rights abuses, such as forced labour for Uighur Muslims, in the joint communique being released today. There has been resistance from the EU, which last year signed a deal with Beijing giving Europe and China greater access to each other’s markets.

The deal is currently on hold.

Last night, WHO director-general Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus revealed the G7 leaders had talked about whether the pandemic might have been caused by a leak from a laboratory in Wuhan. Asked if the ‘lab leak theory’ was discussed, he replied: ‘The origins were discussed but more in relation to how this should be handled in the future.’