Amid the Covid-19 pandemic, the rivalry among imperialist countries is set to further escalate after the meetings held by the Group of Seven (G7) and NATO during the second week of June.

The three-day G7 Summit in Southwestern England ended on June 13 in which a resolution was passed to prevent the growing economic and military influence of China across the globe.

During the meeting, the G7 which is comprised by the United States, United Kingdom, France, Canada, Germany, Italy and Japan reviewed key global developments in the past 40 years. It pointed out that China’s economy in 1979 was smaller than that of Italy. Currently China is now second among the richest countries globally which control global politics.

To counter this, the G7 plans to implement its grandiose infra­structure program dubbed as Build Back Better World (B3W) in poor and developing countries. The B3W aims to counter the China’s trillion dollar infrastructure project dubbed as Belt and Road Initiative.

Aside from threats posed by China, the G7 also pledged to mitigate the impact of the pandemic and other future pandemics, and to limit carbon emissions. However, critics pointed out that its $1-billion climate fund is gravely insufficient to address climate change. Activists also noted that its promise to address environmental destruction is bogus as it has not devised a detailed plan of action for this.

On June 14, the US urged its allies during the North Atlantic Treaty Organization Summit in Belgium to pass a resolution to strengthen the alliance of the European Union against China and support the anti-Russian regimes in Georgia and Ukraine.