Summits of G7 and NATO kick off on Sunday

As summits of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) and Group of Seven (G7) countries kicked off on Sunday (local time), the curtain opens for the “Super-week.” The summits will serve as the New Cold War pendulum, which will swing between the Democratic value alliance of the United States and allies and China – Russia who are gathering forces among developing countries. Eyes are on the impact which the global New Cold War will have on global combined crisis of inflation and economic depression.

President Yoon Suk-yeol who is the first Korean president to attend NATO Summit as one of the invited country’s summit is scheduled to have a South Korea - United States – Japan summit meeting on Wednesday with U.S. President Joe Biden and Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida. The summit between Japan and South Korea has been cancelled.

U.S. President Joe Biden, who is visiting Germany to attend the G7 summit scheduled until Tuesday, hosted bilateral meeting with German Chancellor Olaf Scholz on Sunday and announced a new global infrastructure partnership targeting China. The aim is to provide an alternative to the Chinese the Belt and Road Initiative by G7 mustering forces to support building social infrastructure of the developing world.

Mr. Biden plans to attend the NATO summit scheduled for Wednesday and Thursday to discuss adoption of the new Strategic Concept against the Chinese rapid extension of military influence.

Russian President Vladimir Putin announced Saturday that he will respond to the Western threats and promised that Russia will deliver nuclear capable Iskander missiles to pro-Russian Belarus which borders NATO within several months.

Chinese President Xi Jinping who is tight with Russian President Vladimir Putin announced his plans to invest an additional 1 billion U.S. dollars (circa 1.3 trillion won) to the developing countries during the High-Level Dialogue on Global Development (resulted from the BRICS summit), where summits from 13 developing countries from Asia, South America, Middle East and Africa attended.


Su-Young Hong gaea@donga.com