Coffee at Carbis Bay

Hello friends, we are arriving towards the end of June 2021, Global Political dynamics started showing some action last week. The center was a quiet hotel on seashores of  South Western England, Cabris Bay. G7 leaders gathered there for an annual meeting. The project of Build Back Better World took shape over the coasts of British isles. India was invited as a guest member along with South Africa, Australia, South Korea.

G7 is known as the steering committee of the world. It was a child of the 1973 oil crisis aiming to cooperate in economic matters. It consists of the world's leading 7 economies- the USA, UK, Germany, Italy, France, Canada, and Japan.  Russia was expelled from what was called as G8 following the Russian invasion of Crimea in 2014. The G7 meeting had two main agendas this year. The first was drawing an outline of a fight against the Pandemic and the second was a fight between markets and states. The China rhetoric was expected to play a major role during the news. However, Europeans like Macron and Merkel failed those efforts leaving out only human rights criticism.

Let's see what's in the bag for the fight against the pandemic. G7 promised delivery of 1 billion doses of vaccines by the end of the year to poor nations. It also aimed high by announcing the goal to vaccinate the world by end of 2022. However, there is a huge difference in the deeds and commitments of G7. It will be interesting to look at how far they keep this promise.

History of G7

The second outcome was the proposal of 15% Global Corporation Tax to be imposed on MNCs and big tech. This reflects the second agenda of a fight between the market and states. The state never likes to be dominated by other entity. Big techs like Twitter, Amazon are aiming to expand business by influencing states. G7 and the primarily USA are willing to regulate them through tax measures like these ones.

Short of Expectations 

G7 was the outdated organization for Trump who was aiming to Make America Great Again. As Biden takes the seat in the White House, he is willing to re-energize and revitalize US allies. Cabris Bay summit was the projection of Biden as President than any concrete outcomes.

On the front of Climate Change, they repeated commitment to cut the carbon emissions by half by 2030. None of the G7 came forward to help poorer countries with climate change. This is going to have repercussions in the upcoming COP Glassgow Summit in November.

India's Bag

India attended the G7 annual summit for the second time as a guest country from 2014. Trump had sent an invitation to India last year as well explicitly signalling an expansion of G7 into G10 or something like that. PM Modi attended the summit virtually. India's participation has a new context of rise of China and Biden's China Centric foreign policy. India- China ties are at an all-time low since last year.

New Delhi is presenting itself to G7 as a regional player. At the same time, it is attempting to gain a global table on the issues of trade reforms and climate change. India's presence at G7 along with other democracies is another arena to look for. The statement regarding  Open Societies reflects this. The debate around the possible alliance of ten democracies (D-10) can gain attention after this.

More analysis

We should keep in mind that it's highly unlikely to start Cold War 2.0 by making it a Democracy vs Autocracy battle. The prime reason is Europe's economic entanglement with China. China also has the ability to take on the USA as its economically crippled by the pandemic.

The Carbis Bay has sent the message that drivers of the world are back into the scene. The Great Power saga is expected to begin again after the Pandemic. However, the pandemic has changed the rules of the game in favour of China to the disadvantage of drivers. It's interesting to look at how does G7 plays this time. India's role will be to aim at the driver seat while being a guest at G7 currently.

Take a tour at Carbis Bay