Trade ministers from the Group of Seven advanced economies on Tuesday agreed to cooperate to impose export controls for cutting-edge technologies amid concerns that countries such as China may use them for military purposes and surveillance.
"We reaffirm that export controls are a fundamental policy tool to address the challenges posed by the diversion of technology critical to military applications as well as for other activities that threaten global, regional, and national security," the ministers said in a joint statement after an online meeting.
The G7, which consists of Britain, Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan and the United States, plus the European Union, also underscored the need to use such export restrictions to address the "misuse" of critical and emerging technologies by "malicious actors," without citing specific countries.