Biden urges G-7 leaders to ‘compete’ with China
CARBIS BAY, England, June 12, (AP): Leaders of the world’s largest economies unveiled an infrastructure plan Saturday for the developing world to compete with China’s global initiatives, but there was no immediate consensus on how forcefully to call out Beijing over human rights abuses.
Citing China for its forced labor practices is part of President Joe Biden’s campaign to persuade fellow democratic leaders to present a more unified front to compete economically with Beijing. But while they agreed to work toward competing against China, there was less unity on how adversarial a public position the group should take.
Canada, the United Kingdom and France largely endorsed Biden’s position, while Germany, Italy and the European Union showed more hesitancy during Saturday’s first session of the Group of Seven summit, according to a senior Biden administration official. The official who briefed reporters was not authorized to publicly discuss the private meeting and spoke on condition of anonymity.
Biden held talks with France’s Emmanuel Macron, who said cooperation was needed on a range of issues and told the American president that “it’s great to have a U.S. president part of the club and very willing to cooperate.” Relations between the allies had become strained during the four years of Donald Trump’s presidency and his “America first” foreign policy.
Biden also met with German Chancellor Angela Merkel in between Saturday’s G-7 sessions, according to photographs her spokesperson tweeted. Merkel is scheduled to meet with Biden at the White House next month.
White House officials have said Biden wants the leaders of the G-7 nations - the U.S., Britain, Canada, France, Germany, Japan and Italy - to speak in a single voice against forced labor practices targeting China’s Uyghur Muslims and other ethnic minorities. Biden hopes the denunciation will be part of a joint statement to be released Sunday when the summit ends, but some European allies are reluctant to split so forcefully with Beijing.
China had become one of the more compelling sublots of the wealthy nations’ summit, their first since 2019. Last year’s gathering was canceled because of COVID-19, and recovery from the pandemic is dominating this year’s discussions, with leaders expected to commit to sharing at least 1 billion vaccine shots with struggling countries.
The allies also took the first steps in presenting an infrastructure proposal called “Build Back Better for the World,” a name echoing Biden’s campaign slogan. The plan calls for spending hundreds of billions of dollars in collaboration with the private sector while adhering to climate standards and labor practices.
Projects
It’s designed to compete with China’s trillion-dollar “Belt and Road Initiative,” which has launched a network of projects and maritime lanes that snake around large portions of the world, primarily Asia and Africa. Critics say China’s projects often create massive debt and expose nations to undue influence by Beijing.
Britain also wants the world’s democracies to become less reliant on the Asian economic giant. The U.K. government said Saturday’s discussions would tackle “how we can shape the global system to deliver for our people in support of our values,” including by diversifying supply chains that currently heavily depend on China.
Not every European power has viewed China in as harsh a light as Biden, who has painted the rivalry with China as the defining competition for the 21st century. But there are some signs that Europe is willing to impose greater scrutiny.
Before Biden took office in January, the European Commission announced it had come to terms with Beijing on a deal meant to provide Europe and China with greater access to each other’s markets. The Biden administration had hoped to have consultations on the pact.
But the deal has been put on hold, and the European Union in March announced sanctions targeting four Chinese officials involved with human rights abuses in Xinjiang. Beijing responded with penalties on several members of the European Parliament and other Europeans critical of the Chinese Communist Party.
Biden administration officials see an opportunity to take concrete action to speak out against China’s reliance on forced labor as an “affront to human dignity.”
While calling out China in the G-7 communique would not create any immediate penalties for Beijing, one senior administration official said the action would send a message that the leaders were serious about defending human rights and working together to eradicate the use of forced labor.
An estimated 1 million people or more - most of them Uyghurs - have been confined in reeducation camps in China’s western Xinjiang region in recent years, according to researchers. Chinese authorities have been accused of imposing forced labor, systematic forced birth control, torture and separating children from incarcerated parents.
Beijing rejects allegations that it is committing crimes. The G-7 leaders also hope three days of meetings at a seaside resort in southwestern England will help energize the global economy and sharpen a focus on combating climate change. The leaders planned to attend a barbecue Saturday night, complete with toasted marshmallows, hot buttered rum and a performance by a sea shanty troupe.
Protesters
Hundreds of environmental protesters took to the Cornish seaside early Saturday in a bid to draw the attention to climate issues. A crowd of surfers, kayakers and swimmers gathered on a beach in Falmouth for a mass “paddle out protest” organized by Surfers Against Sewage, a group campaigning for more ocean protections.
British Prime Minister Johnson opened the summit on Friday by warning that the world must not repeat errors of the past 18 months , or those made during the recovery from the 2008 global financial crisis. If not, he said the pandemic “risks being a lasting scar” that entrenched inequalities.
Johnson said the goal of the measures was “to make sure that never again will we be caught unawares.”
Brexit was casting a shadow over Johnson’s meetings with European leaders, including Merkel and Macron, amid tensions over Britain’s implementation of U.K.-EU divorce terms.
Biden ends the trip Wednesday by meeting in Geneva with Russia’s Vladimir Putin. The White House announced Saturday that they will not hold a joint news conference afterward, which removes the opportunity for comparisons to the availability that followed Trump and Putin’s 2018 Helsinki summit, in which Trump sided with Moscow over his own intelligence agencies. Only Biden will address the news media after the meeting.
Putin, in an interview with NBC News, said the U.S.Russia relationship had “deteriorated to its lowest point in recent years.”
He added that while Trump was a “talented” and “colorful” person, Biden was a “career man” in politics, which has “some advantages, some disadvantages, but there will not be any impulse-based movements” by the U.S. president.
YouTube suspends Sen. Johnson:
Sen. Ron Johnson was suspended Friday from uploading videos to YouTube for one week, after the company said he violated its COVID-19 “medical misinformation policies.”
The Wisconsin Republican’s removal stems from statements he made during a June 3 Milwaukee Press Club event, which were posted to YouTube. He criticized the Trump and Biden administrations for “not only ignoring but working against robust research (on) the use of cheap, generic drugs to be repurposed for early treatment of COVID,” the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel reported.
A YouTube spokesperson said: “We removed the video in accordance with our COVID-19 medical misinformation policies, which don’t allow content that encourages people to use Hydroxychloroquine or Ivermectin to treat or prevent the virus.”
The company’s policy says it doesn’t allow content that spreads medical misinformation contradicting local health authorities or the World Health Organization’s information about COVID-19.Johnson blasted the website. (AP)
❑ ❑ ❑
US closes Trump-era office:
The Biden administration said Friday it has dismantled a Trump-era government office to help victims of crimes committed by immigrants, a move that symbolizes President Joe Biden’s rejection of former President Donald Trump’s repeated efforts to link immigrants to crime.
Trump created the Victim Of Immigration Crime Engagement Office, known by its acronym VOICE, by executive order during his first week in office in January 2017.
U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement said it was replacing VOICE with a “more comprehensive and inclusive victim support system.”
VOICE will be replaced by The Victims Engagement and Services Line, which will combine longstanding existing services, such as methods for people to report abuse and mistreatment in immigration detention centers and a notification system for lawyers and others with a vested interest in immigration cases.The new office will add a service for potential recipients of visas designated for victims of human trafficking or violent crimes in the United States. (AP)
❑ ❑ ❑
Attacker wounds 13 in Austin: Someone opened fire in a busy entertainment district in downtown Austin early Saturday, wounding 13 people, including two critically, before getting away, authorities said.
Investigators were looking into what sparked the shooting and weren’t able to get a detailed description of the shooter, but they believe it was a man, Police Chief
seph Chacon said at a 4 a.m. news conference. He said investigators were examining surveillance video and other evidence, and he asked anyone with information about the shooting to contact the police.
The gunfire erupted just before 1:30 a.m. along 6th Street, a popular area filled with bars and restaurants. At the time, the street was barricaded to keep out vehicle traffic, Chacon said.
Eleven of the wounded were taken to one local hospital and the other two were taken to other hospitals, the chief said.
“Our officers responded very quickly,” the interim chief said. “They were able to immediately begin life-saving measures for many of these patients, including applications of tourniquets; applications of chest seals.” (AP)
Event on ‘Juneteenth’ canceled: Officials in North Carolina have denounced plans - now canceled - by a historic museum to put on a reenactment of a white slave owner being pursued by Union soldiers.
The reenactment was scheduled for June 19 - the traditional commemoration date of the emancipation of enslaved people in the United States, known as “Juneteenth.”
Officials in Mecklenburg County said via Twitter on Friday that the performances at Latta Plantation Nature Preserve, which among other things would have portrayed Confederate soldiers lamenting the downfall of the Confederacy, would not take place as previously announced.
“We immediately reached out to the organizers and the event was cancelled,” the tweet said.
The county said it has “zero tolerance” for programming that does not represent equity and diversity. As a result, the county said it was reviewing its contract with the facility vendor regarding future programming.
A screen grab from the museum website showed people were invited to the one-night event to hear stories from a “massa,” or an actor portraying the owner of an enslaved person during a time when federal troops were pursuing those who owned slaves. The word mocks the Black pronunciation of “master.” (AP)