Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison has welcomed an invitation from U.S. President Donald Trump to join an expanded Group of Seven (G7) meeting of advanced economies alongside South Korea, India, and Russia, with China being the noticeable omission.
“It’s a good opportunity to deal with a lot of like-minded countries,” Morrison told 2GB radio on June 1, saying he was “expecting an invitation there.”
A spokesperson for the prime minister said, “The G7 has been a topic of recent high-level exchange.”
“Strengthening international co-operation among like-minded countries is valued at a time of unprecedented global challenges,” said the spokesperson.
Morrison attended last year’s G7 meeting as a guest of French President Emmanuel Macron.
“I’m postponing it because I don’t feel that as a G7, it properly represents what’s going on in the world,” he said.
The G7 currently includes the United States, United Kingdom, Canada, France, Germany, Italy, and Japan. Russia was omitted in 2014 following its annexation of Crimea.
Australia was invited to the D10, along with South Korea, India, and the G7 nations, barring Russia and China.
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Anthony Bergin, senior fellow at the Australia Strategic Policy Institute, told The Epoch Times on June 1 that the invitation from the U.S. for Australia to join the G7 was a sign the nation is “recognised as a very significant country.”“It would allow Australia to use a potentially powerful multilateral group to pursue Australia’s interests across a whole range of issues in economics, technology cooperation, health security issues etc.”
Australia has traditionally seen itself as a “middle power,” a term popularised by former Foreign Minister Gareth Evans while working under the Hawke-Keating government in the 1980s.
Subsequent political leaders, such as former Prime Minister Kevin Rudd, and former Foreign Affairs Minister Julie Bishop, have used the term when describing Australia’s international role.
“We’ve shied away as a really significant power because Australia felt ‘at ease’ in our own neighbourhood rather than ‘rising above the pack,’” Bergin told The Epoch Times.
He said the current prime minister’s willingness to join the G7 demonstrates Morrison’s understanding that Australia will emerge from the pandemic “stronger than many other countries.”
“Given the fact Australia has emerged in the post-COVID era as even more potentially influential, given our record in dealing with the pandemic, now is the time to think big in terms of Australia’s role in the world.”
