Britain and the US highlighted the “shared values” of G7 countries and a desire to protect an international rules-based order as foreign ministers met in person this week for the first time in two years.
“What we are trying to do is to uphold the international rules-based order that our countries have invested so much in over so many decades to the benefit, I would argue not just of our own citizens, but of people around the world,” US Secretary of State Antony Blinken said at a press conference on Monday.
Speaking with UK foreign secretary Dominic Raab, Blinken called for G7 countries to defend “democratic values and open society”, countering threats posed by Russia and China.
The G7 is an international organisation that contains some of the world’s most advanced economies, including France, Germany, Italy, Japan, the United States, the United Kingdom, and Canada. Representatives of the European Union will also be present
This year, India, Australia, South Korea, South Africa, and the Chair and Secretary-General of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) will join the meetings.
“I do see the increasing demand and need for agile clusters of like-minded countries that share the same values and want to protect the multilateral system and I think you can see that in the guests that we brought into the G7,” Raab said.
Among the topics they will discuss includes climate change, Iran, China, Ukraine, Russia, disinformation and rule of law.
