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Britain's Prime Minister Boris Johnson, center, with from left, Italy's Prime Minister Mario Draghi, Australia's Prime Minister Scott Morrison, German Chancellor Angela Merkel, South Africa's President Cyril Ramaphosa, South Korea's President Moon Jae-in, US President Joe Biden, French President Emmanuel Macron, Canada's Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, Japan's Prime Minister Yoshihide Suga and President of the European Council Charles Michel during the G7 summit in Cornwall, England, Jun 12, 2021. (Leon Neal/Pool via AP) - 

Leaders of the world's largest economies unveiled an infrastructure plan Saturday (Jun 12) for the developing world to compete with China’s global initiatives, but they were searching for a consensus on how to forcefully call out Beijing over human rights abuses.

Citing China for its forced labour practices is part of President Joe Biden’s campaign to persuade fellow democratic leaders to present a more unified front to compete economically with Beijing. But while they agreed to work toward competing against China, there was less unity on how adversarial a public position the group should take.

The communique that summarises the meeting's commitments was being written and the contents would not be clear until it was released when the summit ended Sunday. White House officials said late Saturday that they believed that China, in some form, could be called out for “nonmarket policies and human rights abuses”.

In his first summit as president, Biden made a point of carving out one-on-one-time with various leaders, bouncing from French president Emmanuel Macron to German chancellor Angela Merkel to Italian prime minister Mario Draghi as well as Japan's Yoshihide Suga and Australia's Scott Morrison, a day after meeting with British Prime Minister Boris Johnson as if to personally try to ward off memories of the chaos that his predecessor would often bring to these gatherings.

Macron told Biden that collaboration was needed on a range of issues and told the American president that “it’s great to have a US president part of the club and very willing to cooperate”. Relations between the allies had become strained during the four years of Donald Trump's presidency and his “America first” foreign policy.

Merkel, for her part, downplayed differences on China and the Nord Stream 2 pipeline which would transport natural gas from Russia to Germany, bypassing Ukraine.

“The atmosphere is very cooperative, it is characterised by mutual interest," Merkel said. "There are very good, constructive and very vivid discussions in the sense that one wants to work together.”

China had become one of the more compelling sublots of the wealthy nations' summit, their first since 2019. Last year’s gathering was cancelled because of COVID-19, and recovery from the pandemic is dominating this year's discussions, with leaders expected to commit to sharing at least 1 billion vaccine shots with struggling countries.

The allies also took the first steps in presenting an infrastructure proposal called “Build Back Better for the World”, a name echoing Biden's campaign slogan. The plan calls for spending hundreds of billions of dollars in collaboration with the private sector while adhering to climate standards and labour practices.

It's designed to compete with China’s trillion-dollar “Belt and Road Initiative” which has launched a network of projects and maritime lanes that snake around large portions of the world, primarily Asia and Africa. Critics say China's projects often create massive debt and expose nations to undue influence by Beijing.

Britain also wants the world’s democracies to become less reliant on the Asian economic giant. The UK government said Saturday’s discussions would tackle “how we can shape the global system to deliver for our people in support of our values", including by diversifying supply chains that currently heavily depend on China.

Not every European power has viewed China in as harsh a light as Biden, who has painted the rivalry with China as the defining competition for the 21st century. But there are some signs that Europe is willing to impose greater scrutiny.

Before Biden took office in January, the European Commission announced it had come to terms with Beijing on a deal meant to provide Europe and China with greater access to each other’s markets. The Biden administration had hoped to have consultations on the pact.

While calling out China in the G7 communique would not create any immediate penalties for Beijing, one senior administration official said the action would send a message that the leaders were serious about defending human rights and working together to eradicate the use of forced labour//CNA