G7's coercion claim slammed as 'absurd'

US, allies urged to abandon hypocritical finger-pointing, hold talks with Beijing

The United States and its Western allies have been the major perpetrators of economic coercion that have inflicted suffering on millions of people around the world, according to international experts and scholars.

G7 leaders meeting in Hiroshima, Japan, from Friday to Sunday are set to issue a statement that includes their concerns about alleged economic coercion by China, Reuters reported, citing unnamed US officials.

"The report that the G7 may call out China's economic coercion is hypocritical given that the US is by far the world's biggest deployer of unilateral coercive measures," said Jeffrey Sachs, a Columbia University economist who served as a special adviser to the UN secretary-general from 2001 to 2018.