G7 SEEN TO RANKLE CHINA OVER TAIWAN MOVE

Leaders of the Group of Seven industrialized nations on Sunday called for peace and stability across the Taiwan Strait and urged China to respect human rights in the Xinjiang region and freedom in Hong Kong, a pronouncement that is certain to anger China, according to Kyodo News agency.

In a communique issued after their three-day summit in Cornwall, southwestern England, the leaders expressed support for the Tokyo Olympics and Paralympics starting next month in a boost to Prime Minister Yoshihide Suga, who faces a public skeptical about Japan's hosting of the events amid the coronavirus pandemic.

"We underscore the importance of peace and stability across the Taiwan Strait, and encourage the peaceful resolution of cross-Strait issues," the communique said, making it the first time that the G7 has referred to the Taiwan situation in a leaders' statement.

China regards the self-ruled, democratic island as a renegade province to be reunited with the mainland, by force, if necessary. Concerns have grown that Beijing has been increasing its military pressure on Taipei.

In the first in-person summit in two years, the leaders of Britain, Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, and the United States, plus the European Union underlined a commitment to extending more than 1 billion additional vaccine doses to struggling countries in hopes of ending the global COVID-19 crisis by 2022.

"What we as the G7 need to do is demonstrate the benefits of democracy and freedom and human rights to the rest of the world. And we can partly achieve that by the greatest feat in medical history, vaccinating the world," said British Prime Minister Boris Johnson, who presided over the summit.

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