When Japan’s prime minister, Fumio Kishida, welcomes Western leaders to the Group of Seven summit this week, Russia’s invasion of Ukraine will be front of mind. The summit, after all, is taking place in Hiroshima, where the U.S. dropped the first nuclear bomb in World War II, and all of the G7 countries — the U.S., the UK, France, Germany, Japan, Italy, and Canada — have deplored Russia for its “irresponsible nuclear rhetoric” and military aggression.
But for Japan especially, the G7 represents another important opportunity: the chance to discuss economic security, which is broadly defined as the interaction between national security and economics.
Illustration by Nate Kitch
More in this series:
Rare Earth Reshore
The quest for economic security gave life to the G7 some 50 years ago. After the 1973
Exclusive longform investigative journalism, Q&As, news and analysis, and data on Chinese business elites and corporations. We publish China scoops you won't find anywhere else.
A weekly curated reading list on China from David Barboza, Pulitzer Prize-winning former Shanghai correspondent for The New York Times.
A daily roundup of China finance, business and economics headlines.
We offer discounts for groups, institutions and students. Go to our Subscriptions page for details.
On Thursday, Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo met with Wang Wentao, the Chinese Commerce Minister, in Washington. It marked the first cabinet-level meeting in Washington between the U.S. and China during the Biden administration, and it was a signal of the Commerce Department’s increasingly central role in the current U.S.-China relationship. Usually, the Commerce Department is far from the center of anything, but as Katrina Northrop reports, the department is uniquely suited to address the China challenge.
The lawyer and author talks about the attack on a train in the 1920s which created an international incident, the rise of the Communist Party and the conditions for foreign media in China today.