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China has summoned the Japanese ambassador to register protests over “hype around China-related issues” at the Group of Seven (G7) summit over the weekend, the foreign ministry said in a statement.
The heads of the world’s richest countries who met in the Japanese city of Hiroshima expressed serious concerns about rising tensions in the East China Sea and the South China Sea as well as voicing concerns about the human rights situations in China, including in Tibet and Xinjiang, reports Al Jazeera.
Japan collaborated with the other countries at the G7 summit “in activities and joint declarations … to smear and attack China, grossly interfering in China’s internal affairs, violating the basic principles of international law and the spirit of the four political documents between China and Japan”, said Vice Foreign Minister Sun Weidong referring to the China-Japan Joint Communique of 1972.
A joint communique issued by the G7 nations on Saturday singled out China on issues ranging from Taiwan and maritime claims to economic coercion and human rights, underscoring the tensions between Beijing and the group of rich countries which includes the United States.
Meanwhile, state-backed Chinese newspaper Global Times called the G7 an “anti-China workshop” on Monday.
“The US is pushing hard to weave an anti-China net in the Western world,” the Global Times said in an editorial, titled “G7 has descended into an anti-China workshop”, on Monday.
“This is not just a matter of brutal interference in China’s internal affairs and smearing China, but also an undisguised urge for confrontation between the camps.”
Beijing’s foreign ministry said it firmly opposed the G7 statement and said it had summoned the Japanese ambassador as part of its protest to the summit host.
Bd-pratidin English/Golam Rosul
