G7 Summit in Japan: Why is India invited and what role will it play?

All eyes are on Japan’s Hiroshima, where the G7 (Group of Seven) leaders are holding their annual meeting. But apart from the member nations, this year’s host has invited eight more guests to the summit that begins on Friday.

The G7 is a gathering of the world’s wealthiest democracies – Japan, the United States, the United Kingdom, Canada, Germany, France, and Italy. The representatives of the European Union, which is not an official G7 member, are invited. And then there are the host countries, which are carefully picked.

The G7 countries are not as economically influential as they were once. In 1990, the group accounted for over half of the world’s GDP, according to the International Monetary Fund. Now that figure has plummeted to 30 per cent, according to a report in the BBC.

The G7 nations are well aware of the rising might of other newly advanced economies like Australia and South Korea and emerging markets like India. They want to keep them close. India has been a regular at the summit and has snagged an invite yet again this year. Japan prime minister Fumio Kishida has also invited South Korea, Australia, Brazil, Vietnam, Indonesia, Comoros and the Cook Islands.

What will be India’s role at the summit? And why have the other nations been picked? We take a look.

Also read: A Tragic Past: 1945 bombing of Hiroshima looms large as G7 leaders meet in Japan

India at G7 summit

On Friday, Prime Minister Narendra Modi left for Japan to join the G7 summit in Hiroshima. This is the fourth time the Indian leader will be attending the meeting – he was invited to Germany in 2022, the UK in 2021 and France in 2019.

In 2020, the United States, which was hosting the summit invited India but it was cancelled because of the COVID-19 pandemic.

The practice of inviting a select number of nations picked by the G7 host became in 2003. Then Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee participated in the summit in France. This is India’s tenth participation.

Also read: What is G7? What can we expect from the meet in Japan’s Hiroshima?

Kishida invited Modi earlier this year. His guest list is seen as an attempt to woo the “Global South”, a term used for developing nations in Asia, Africa and South America. India is among the influential countries in this unofficial group, which also has complex ties with Russia and China at the focus of the summit.

As PM Modi left for Japan, he said that he was “looking forward to a healthy exchange of views on diverse global subjects”.

“My presence in this G7 Summit is particularly meaningful as India holds the G20 Presidency this year. I look forward to exchanging views with the G7 countries and other invited partners on challenges that the world faces and the need to collectively address them. I would also be holding bilateral meetings with some of the leaders attending the Hiroshima G7 Summit,” he added.

The Russia question

One of the key discussions at the G7 summit with be Russia and imposing more sanctions and export controls on the nation over the war in Ukraine. But India has maintained neutrality in the conflict and will have to tread carefully because of its longstanding ties with Moscow and the fact that it continues to import Russian oil and its dependence on the country for arms.

India could express its concern that the US and its allies are exacerbating the global economic crisis by imposing more sanctions on Moscow. And it is not alone. The rising costs because of the Ukraine war have hit emerging and developing economies.

“Vietnam has a historically close relationship with Russia, which supplies at least 60 per cent of their arms and 11 per cent of their fertiliser,” Nguyen Khac Giang, a visiting fellow at the Institute of South East Asian Studies in Singapore, told the BBC. “Indonesia, although not heavily dependent on Russia, is a significant importer of Russian weapons and maintains good relations with Moscow.”

Also read: Losing its Shine: Why has the UK banned Russia’s diamonds? Will G7 countries follow suit?

Taking on China

China’s rising aggression will dominate the agenda at the G7 summit. Japan being the only Asian G7 member sees this as a chance to respond to Beijing’s show of strength around Taiwan.

“As the pillar of the G-7 in Asia, Japan is particularly focussed on updating the international order to cope with the rise of China,” Leif-Eric Easley, a professor at Ewha University in Seoul told The Associated Press. “The Kishida government’s agenda and special invitations for the Hiroshima summit reflect an effort not to contain China but to expand the international coalition defending standards for state behaviour.”

However, this could be challenging as agreeing on a common approach to take on the world’s second-largest economy will not be easy. China is an important trade partner of the G7 nations and each of them has a complicated relationship with it; their concerns also vary.

New Delhi’s ties with Bejing have hit a low as border tensions continue. As Japan pushes back on China, Kishida hopes India will also stand up to China’s assertiveness.

India is part of the Quad group of four Indo-Pacific nations, including the US, Japan and Australia, which China has called the “Asian Nato”. With the Quad summit in Sydney cancelled, the four leaders are likely to have an informal dialogue in Hiroshima which will be seen as a move to counter China’s growing threats in the region. Biden will be meeting Modi of  Anthony Albanese of Australia on the sidelines of the summit in Japan.

India will also participate in three formal sessions – two on 20 May and one on 21 May. Of the 20 May sessions, the first will focus on food, health, development and gender equality and the second on climate and energy. The third session to be held the next day is titled “Towards Peaceful, Stable, and Prosperous World”.

India is this year’s president of the G-20, which is seen as a crucial bridge between G7 economies and the Global South. Japan has traditionally had close ties with India and Kishida visited in March for a summit with Modi.

The other guest nations

Leaders of Australia, Brazil, Comoros, Cook Islands, Indonesia, South Korea and Vietnam are invited to Hiroshima, as Kishida stresses the importance of reaching out to developing countries.

Australia, a key US ally, has already been closely cooperating with Japan, including in efforts to achieve a “free and open Indo-Pacific”, according to the Japanese foreign ministry, which called Australia a “special strategic partner”, reports AP.

Japan is courting Vietnam because it also has territorial disputes with China, according to Kim Yeol Soo, an expert at South Korea’s Korea Institute for Military Affairs. And the invite to South Korea reflects the role of the two neighbours as staunch US allies with a shared security threat from North Korea’s advancing nuclear arsenal.

Some of the guest nations lead regional and other bodies. Brazil takes over next year for India as president of the G-20 and Indonesia is chair of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN). Comoros leads the African Union, and the Cook Islands chairs the Pacific Islands Forum.

With inputs from agencies

Read all the Latest News, Trending News, Cricket News, Bollywood News,
India News and Entertainment News here. Follow us on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram.