🌍 G7 foreign ministers “more united than ever”

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Today’s briefing is a 5 min read:

• 🤝 Highlights from this year’s G7 foreign ministers’ meeting. 

• 🌱 You asked: What are the alternatives to COP? 

• ➕ Plus: How the papers are covering US Secretary of State Blinken’s South Korea trip, the Berlin Wall fell 34 years ago, and why folks in Austria are googling the Coca-Cola truck. 

📢 Reminder: We’ll be off for our annual team retreat this weekend, which means there’ll be no briefing tomorrow, Monday or Tuesday. We’ll see you back here on Wednesday 15 November.

1. 🇹🇼 Taiwan: Joseph Wu, Taiwan’s foreign minister, began a visit to the Baltic countries on Wednesday. Taiwan has a diplomatic office in Lithuania and plans to open another in Estonia, which China warned would violate Tallinn’s “solemn commitment to the 'One China' principle.”

2. 🇦🇱 Albania: Italy and Albania signed an agreement this week to build detention centres to house migrants attempting to travel across the Adriatic Sea to Italy. The EU questioned the arrangement’s legality, and one Italian politician described the facilities as “Italy’s Guantanamo.” 

3. 🇱🇰 Sri Lanka: The US will help build a $553M shipping container terminal in Sri Lanka’s Port of Colombo, according to the US Development Finance Corporation. The agency’s CEO said the money reflected the “high priority for the United States to be active in the Indo-Pacific region.”

4. 🇨🇱 Chile: Voters will go to the polls on 17 December to vote on a new constitution. This draft constitution has been described by opponents as ‘too conservative’ and follows the rejection of a ‘progressive’ constitution last September. 

5. 🇸🇾 Syria: At least thirty pro-government forces stationed at various outposts in the Syrian desert were reportedly killed by ISIS fighters in an ambush overnight. The group also claimed responsibility for a bus bombing in Kabul late Tuesday night.

🤝 G7 | Geopolitics

G7 foreign ministers “more united than ever”

Foreign ministers from the G7 countries met in Japan for talks on Tuesday and Wednesday of this week. As always, the meeting produced a fairly impenetrable joint statement laying out the G7’s foreign policy priorities in a numbered list.

We’ve unscrambled some of the ‘highlights’ for you:

1. 🇮🇱–🇵🇸 Israel / Gaza: The war was the first issue addressed this year, whereas “Russia’s war of aggression against Ukraine” topped the 2022 and 2021 communiqués. The G7 ministers expressed support for “humanitarian pauses and corridors” but stopped short of calling for a ceasefire. All member states condemned Hamas’ terror attacks on Israel, but some disagreement remains on how far to push Israel amid the escalating civilian death toll.

2. 🇺🇦 On Ukraine: The foreign ministers reiterated that their countries’ support for Ukraine “will never waver”. This language is aimed at reassuring Kyiv after Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni was caught saying in September “[t]here is a lot of fatigue, we [are] near the moment in which everybody understands that we need a way out”.

3. 🇨🇳 On China: The ministers doubled down on the idea that the West is “de-risking and diversifying” from China rather than “decoupling or turning inwards”. The statement’s language wasn’t all conciliatory: “We will seek to address the challenges posed by China’s non-market policies and practices, which distort the global economy. We will counter malign practices, such as illegitimate technology transfer”. It took a while, but it seems G7 countries have settled on a common rhetorical playbook.

4. 🇦🇿–🇦🇲 On Central Asia: This year’s statement dedicated significantly more attention to the region because of the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict. Interestingly, the communiqué focused first on building trade and investment links before urging “Azerbaijan to fully comply with its obligations under international humanitarian law”. G7 countries are probably trying to tread lightly around a conflict they’ve historically had little involvement with.

5. 🇮🇷 On Iran: The G7 was robust in its assessment of Iran as a bad actor in the Middle East. The statement criticised Iran’s support for Hamas and Hezbollah, reiterated that Tehran must never acquire a nuclear weapon, expressed concern about the human rights situation inside Iran, and called out Iran’s destabilising activities in general. It was pretty strong stuff from the foreign ministers.

Intrigue's take: A good rule of thumb is the more generic and vague a post-summit joint statement is, the more disagreement there was behind the scenes. And there will no doubt have been robust debates across G7 capitals about the language used to describe the Israel-Hamas war, the Russo-Ukraine war, and China.

While we’d stop short of calling this G7 foreign ministers’ statement specific or precise, the language used is certainly not waffle. That tells us that a broad consensus has emerged amongst G7 countries on how to deal with the most pressing global issues.

Also worth noting: 

• US Secretary of State Antony Blinken said “the G7 is more united than ever”.

• With that said, France was the only G7 country to support a UN resolution calling for an “immediate and sustained humanitarian truce leading to a cessation of hostilities” in Gaza.

📰 How newspapers covered…

US Secretary of State Antony Blinken’s visit to South Korea:

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🌱 Road to COP28

You asked: Do big climate conferences work? And if not, what are the alternatives?

The 2015 United Nations Climate Change Conference (COP21) held in Paris was a success. The ‘Paris Agreement’ was remarkable insofar as the participating 196 countries agreed, by consensus, to reduce their carbon output "as soon as possible".

So, whether you think climate conferences work or not is more about the enforceability and accountability of any measures that are agreed.

For example, climate activist Greta Thunberg called the UN climate conferences last year as opportunities “for leaders and people in power to get attention, using many different kinds of greenwashing”, adding that the system “was not really working.”

So, let’s imagine that the UN climate conferences go the way of the dodo – what other options does the world have to try and tackle a collective action problem like climate change?

1. 🧑‍⚖️ Litigation in international (and national) courts: In March, the International Court of Justice said it would consider Vanuatu’s complaint that countries weren’t acting quickly enough to respond to climate change. The ICJ will likely issue its non-binding, advisory opinion in late 2024.

2. 📛 Other, less headline-grabbing conferences: There are plenty of local, national, and regional climate conferences (many organised by the UN) that help stakeholders align their policies. Without the glaring spotlight of the world’s media, these conferences have the benefit of allowing negotiators more political wriggle room.

3. 💪 Good ol’fashioned activism: This includes everything from individual boycotts of products (think plastic straws), activist investing that seeks to increase representation on corporate boards, to lobbying domestic governments for faster action. The jury is out on whether any of it is effective.

Intrigue’s take: Many people are understandably frustrated with what they perceive as a lack of climate action and the lip service world leaders seemingly pay to climate issues.

But when facing a long-term collective action problem (like climate change), countries need to create a shared global vision for the future. While the other methods mentioned above have their merits and are part of the solution, global conferences like COPs – replete with their grandiose speechifying – are probably still the most effective way to change the global narrative.

Also worth noting: 

• This year’s COP will be the first ‘Global Stocktake’ to measure progress towards the Paris Agreement’s goals.

➕ Extra Intrigue

Here’s what people were Googling yesterday:

• 🇦🇹 Austrians were searching for ‘Coca Cola Weihnachtstruck’ (Coca-Cola Christmas truck) to check whether the festive road tour would come to a city near them. Who can blame them?

• 🇨🇱 Folks in Chile were looking up ‘Nueva Ley de Tránsito’ (New transit law) to prepare as new traffic measures (🇨🇱) come into effect on Friday.

• 🇯🇵 Japanese gamers were eager to learn more about ‘原神 フリーナ’ (Genshin Freena) a new character was introduced in a popular videogame.

🗳️ Poll time!

📜 Today in history

On this day in 1989, the wall separating East and West Berlin opened up to allow the free movement of people through the two halves of the city, effectively leading to Germany’s reunification and the beginning of the end of the Cold War. 

Yesterday’s poll: Should presidents/prime ministers have a maximum term limit?

🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩 👍 Yes, term limits enforce political turnover (89%)

⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️ 👎 No, let the people choose an alternative at the polls (10%)

⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️ ✍️ Other (write in!) (1%)

Your two cents:

• 👍 E.T: “Yes, they should. Even the best songs have a final note, and leaders should be no exception.”

• 👎 O.R: “Term limits work both ways and may entrench a power-hungry despot as much as create insecurity for newer occupants. Flexibility creates a need to work for the voters, with some minor risk of rigging or pork-barrelling. Overall, flexibility is preferable to fostering complacency.”

• ✍️ G.S: “Depends on how the political (voting) system works?”