Whenever I read diplomatic statements, I try to read between the lines. I have especially been doing this ever since I left the Foreign Ministry in 2005. I know policymakers rarely discuss sensitive issues in public documents, and the communique of the May 3-5 Group of Seven foreign ministers’ meeting in London was no exception.
The latest G7 foreign ministers’ communique of more than 12,000 words was so long that a great majority of high-ranking diplomats from the group's member states may not have time to read the entire document. With that said, this paper is worth reading, since G7 foreign ministers have not produced a joint communique since April 2017.
Many in Tokyo believe that the document was focused on China. Japan’s Jiji Press, for example, reported that the foreign ministers adopted “a joint statement that expressed deep concern over China,” underscoring "the importance of peace and stability across the Taiwan Strait,” whose reference “is extremely unusual for G7 documents.”