There’s a plan to replace the G7 with a D10 club of democratic partners. What does that mean? The G7 is a longstanding group of seven democracies — mostly Western except Japan, which used to be regarded as honorary “Western” — whose leaders gather annually to discuss, and sometimes even tackle, great world issues and defend and promote democracy. The members are Britain, Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan and the United States.
The G7 has a distinctly 20th century flavor. Unlike the larger G20, it dates from the before the full flowering of the digital age and before the massive rise of Asian power. The 2021 meeting, due to take place this coming June, will be chaired by Britain, whose turn it is to be host; and British Prime Minister Boris Johnson is determined to bring it more into the modern, and very different, world that now surrounds us.
For a start, he has invited three other nations to attend as guests — India, South Korea and Australia. And now there is talk of permanently expanding the old inner group into a larger team of like-minded countries, reflecting the new realities of world power, as well as the new dangers. Hence the Democratic 10 plan.