Yoon Suk Yeol(right), the President of South Korea, is seen in a summit meeting with President Joe Biden (left) of the United States and Prime Minister Fumio Kishida of Japan at the Grand Prince Hotel, the venue for the G7 summit in Hiroshima, on May 21 last year. ⓒ NewsisChinese state-run media outlets relentlessly criticize South Korea for not being invited to the forthcoming G7 summit in Italy this June.
On the 23rd, Global Times (GT), an English-language media outlet affiliated with the People’s Daily, the official newspaper of the Central Committee of the Chinese Communist Party, published a column titled South Korea’s shattered G8 dream shows the West didn’t want it. The column criticized, “South Korea, which has long coveted a seat at the G7, was not invited to this year’s G7 summit to be held in Italy in June,” adding that “it demonstrates that South Korea is not as important as it thinks from the Western perspective.”
GT further noted, “Yoon Suk Yeol, the President of South Korea, has a vision of positioning South Korea as a global hub state and strengthening networks with like-minded countries to enhance the strategic position of his country.” They added, “Not being invited (to the G7 summit) is a major blow to South Korea’s diplomatic direction and self-assessment.” They also stated, “Despite all his diplomatic efforts, President Yoon’s failure to secure an invitation is a vivid failure of the Yoon Suk Yeol administration,” and “Being ignored by the G7 is not the only diplomatic frustration South Korea has recently faced. South Korea also failed to secure the Expo last year.”
Global Times mocked that Japan is the biggest stumbling block to South Korea’s joint to the G7 membership, wanting to secure its influence in the sphere of power led by the United States, and the United States only needs South Korean money and resources to maintain its hegemony, not genuine interest in inviting it to the G7. They mainly argued, “In the past, South Korea was courted by the G7 because of its friendly relationship with China, which gives high strategic value to South Korea,” and “If South Korea wants truthful respect from the world, it needs to make mature decisions for its profit rather than focusing on G7, but stop blindly following the United States, which is confronting China.”
Huanqiu Shibao, an international news specialist newspaper affiliated with the People’s Daily, also published an op-ed by Da Zhuang, a researcher at the Northeast Asia Research of Heilongjiang Science and Technology Institute, on the same day. The op-ed urged South Korea, the chair nation of the South Korea-China-Japan summit, to change its stance. The author argued in the article, “South Korea’s attempt to position itself as a global hub state has turned into a one-sided, unbalanced diplomacy of the West,” and “I hope South Korea will not just stick to balanced diplomacy but show genuine sincerity in creating an atmosphere of prosperity and development where South Korea, China, and Japan can coexist despite their differences.”
This year’s G7 chair, the Italian government, is known to be planning to invite Tunisia, Kenya, Algeria, the Republic of South Africa, India, Brazil, and Argentina to the summit. South Korea was first invited in 2020 when the host country was the United States and then-President Donald Trump invited President Moon Jae In. In 2021, UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson, the host country, also invited President Moon. In 2022, the host country, German Chancellor Olaf Scholz, did not invite President Yoon, while Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida, the host country in 2023, invited President Yoon.
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