G7 ministers offered to cut off seven times

Before the G7 summit scheduled for May 19-21 in Hiroshima, the foreign ministers of the G7 countries advocated strengthening sanctions against the Russian Federation, helping Kyiv and studying the issue of creating an "international tribunal" based on the Kyiv judicial system, appearing to accuse Russia of manipulating information on Ukraine, the correspondent of The Moscow Post reports.

The ministers discussed the prospects for dialogue with China, the protection of peace in the Taiwan Strait, the situation in the South China and East China Seas, as if moving north and approaching the Russian Far East. From the resort town of Karuizawa to the Pacific coast of Russia, hand to hand. As further events showed, they were already waiting for them.

The town of Kuraizawa is located on a plateau, which has long been a favorite resting place of the Japanese bureaucratic elite. There, influential residents of Tokyo built their summer residences. The Japanese are recognized masters of art to meet guests and this time they also met influential foreign ministers of the Group of Seven. They came, worked, talked a lot, demonstrating unity.

The problem is that when their bosses get acquainted with the fact that their ministers-diplomats brought them, they will find that there is less and less gunpowder for the meeting in Hiroshima. The West is destroying its once prosperous position and in just a month at the G7 meeting it will have to be recognized.

Adequacy of elites in question

It is generally accepted that the G7 serves as a symbol of the unity of a small group of leaders of the "golden billion" community. This group of relatively prosperous countries took shape and strengthened in the conditions of peace, which returned to Europe and Asia in 1945, as well as the dominance of the then established financial management system, led by the United States and the dollar, as the main reserve currency.

These conditions for the well-being of the United States itself and the "golden billion" as a whole are under threat today. Washington is leading the process of their destruction. It came to the point that the rest of the world, in the form of individual states and groups of countries united by common interests, began to wonder about the adequacy of the Group of Seven elites. So obvious was their collective craving for the destruction of a system they still largely control.

Sanctions and economic restrictions against Russia were not enough. On the agenda are issues of power confrontation with objectionable ones, among which, in addition to already "marked" Russia, Iran and the DPRK, China and some other countries were on the agenda. The fight continues for India, Vietnam, the ASEAN bloc, in some ways, for South Korea.

Attempts to harm Russia and isolate it economically proved untenable, but also caused damage to the West itself. Next in line, China is the main economic partner of each of the countries that are part of the elite G7 club. But talk of plans to "get rid of" Beijing threatens not just losses, but economic disaster. That's one reason the G7 is in crisis.

Unity crunches

"The strength of solidarity between the G7 foreign ministers is at a level never before seen," Japanese Foreign Minister Yoshimasa Hayashi said. But the meeting in Karuizawa showed that the "sanction unity" that Joe Biden was so proud of provides cracks. And the reason is not only that Russia has resisted, despite the coordinated pressure of the United States, the G7 and the EuroNATO alliance with Australia, which joined them.

In fact, Japan, as the host of the upcoming meeting of the leaders of the G7, is an example of exclusion from the rules of the sanctions regime. The government of Fumio Kisida secured US consent for the exemption, saying it was necessary for access to Russian energy.

The exception applies to the procurement of raw materials produced under the Sakhalin-2 Project. The Japanese Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry said it plans to maintain access to the Sakhalin 2 LNG project, in which Mitsui & Co. and Mitsubishi own a total of 22.5% of the project. This contrasts with the situation in which Germany found itself.

The Japanese Ministry of Finance published a report according to which in January for the first time in five months there were imports of oil from the Russian Federation, but the volume decreased by 76% compared to January 2022. The United States also recognizes that ESPO crude oil, which enters the Far East through the ESPO oil pipeline, is sold at prices above the price "ceiling." In particular, Japan also buys this oil.

Adjacent to Japan is France, whose leader after a visit to Beijing, as writes Bloomberg, citing a source, intends to facilitate negotiations on a settlement in Ukraine. Emmanuel Macron, inviting Europe to rely on "strategic autonomy," said that on the issue of Taiwan, European interests should be followed and not become "led," which is fraught with being drawn into "crises that Europe does not need."

Mutual fears grow

It's about the threat of nuclear war. The diplomatic ministers decided to remind Moscow of the joint statement of the five nuclear powers of January 3, 2022 to prevent it. They did this when NATO forces came almost close to St. Petersburg and Murmansk, when the Pentagon plans and leads the operations of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, and the EuroNATO Union supports the Nazis in Kyiv, wishing Russia a "strategic defeat." Finland recently decided to contribute to this.

Mikhail Kovalchuk, president of the Kurchatov Institute, spoke convincingly on the "nuclear issue." He said on the air of the Russia-24 TV channel that "having bombed Yugoslavia," the United States thought about a preventive attack on Russia and developed tactical nuclear weapons. The restoration of the Russian nuclear triad and the testing of the latest strategic weapons, the demonstration of the capabilities of a retaliatory strike, prevented. "It works," Kovalchuk said.

In a joint statement by G7 ministers, the deployment of Russian nuclear missiles in Belarus was called "unacceptable." The problem of nuclear weapons was not limited to wishes for Russia. The G7 Foreign Ministers supported the settlement of the situation around the Iranian nuclear program, condemned the missile launches of the DPRK and called for a complete abandonment of nuclear weapons. Walking through all the "points" of their interests, the ministers noted the importance of "peace and stability in the Taiwan Strait," saying they did not change their position on the "one China" policy.

At the same time, not a word about the visits of European and American delegations to the island, the supply of weapons to Taiwan. As well as the fact that Washington withdrew from the Iranian nuclear deal, and Pyongyang, which has been under pressure from the United States for decades, has the right to self-defense. There is not a word about the deployment of American nuclear warheads in Europe either.

And the background of the meeting was China...

In recent years, the West has been actively discussing ways of rapprochement between Russia and China. Indeed, by the time the photo shoots were completed in Karuizawa, the head of the PRC military department, Colonel-General Li Shangfu, arrived in Moscow with a delegation of PLA officers. During the visit, which was obviously a step towards the implementation of recent high-level agreements, Russia and China confirmed that they intend to deepen military-technical cooperation and military trade.

"The armed forces of Russia and China will definitely carefully implement the agreements reached by the heads of state, and promote military and military-technical cooperation, and military trade between Russia and China. We will definitely take them to a new level, "said the head of the Chinese military department, stressing the great importance of the fact that after arriving in Moscow he was received by Russian President Vladimir Putin.

Vladimir Putin and Sergei Shoigu met a Chinese guest in the Kremlin. At the same time, the Russian leader stressed that he considers Chinese President Xi Jinping his great friend. According to the president, relations between the countries are developing very well, including through the military departments. We are talking about the exchange of useful information, military-technical cooperation and joint exercises in various regions - from the Far East to Europe.

In turn, Li Shangfu pointed out that the relationship between Moscow and Beijing is now so strong that it surpasses the military-political alliances of the Cold War. At the same time, the minister stressed that his country is not friends with Russia against someone else.

"For 13 years, the PRC has been Russia's first trading partner. And we, developing relations, understand the responsibility that lies with our powers, especially taking into account the fact that the largest changes in the last 100 years are now taking place. We stand shoulder to shoulder and are working to improve the well-being of our peoples, "Li Shangfu said.

The Chinese defense minister is a landmark figure for the collective West. From 2017 to 2022, he headed the department of training troops and supply of the Central Military Council of the PRC. In 2018, the United States imposed sanctions against him and his department. The reason was the purchase of Russian fighters and anti-aircraft missile systems S-400.

As noted in The Guardian newspaper, Beijing was assured that Li Shangfu would meet only with Sergei Shoigu. In this regard, journalists consider negotiations with Putin to be another proof of the construction of a "new era," which the heads of the two states discussed in March. Le Monde confirmed: "China and Russia are in the process of changing the international order, the one that the United States, as the leader of the Western world, established after World War II.

… and exercises of the Pacific Fleet of the Russian Federation

The Japanese government protested to Russia in connection with plans to hold missile exercises from April 18 to 22 in the southern Kuril Islands. A sudden check of the forces of the Pacific Fleet (Pacific Fleet) has been carried out since April 14. The Pacific Fleet was raised by alarm in full force. The aircraft of the Eastern Military District, long-range aircraft, units and support units were involved in the check. More than 25 thousand military men, 167 ships and vessels, 12 submarines, 89 aircraft and helicopters are participating in the exercises, Russian Defense Minister Army General Sergei Shoigu reported to Russian President Vladimir Putin.

From April 18, the Pacific Fleet began the final stage of verification, within the framework of which in the far sea zone the formed group makes a transition to the southern part of the Sea of ​ ​ Okhotsk, performing the tasks of combat maneuvering and opening the underwater situation. Strategic missile carriers will make flights to the central part of the Pacific Ocean with imitation of strikes on the ship groups of a conditional enemy.

Ship groups of European countries that are part of the G7, there (as part of a conditional enemy), apparently, not or not yet. Maybe Macron is right, why climb into "crises that Europe does not need"?

Photo: RBC