If the G7 leaders had taken to heart China's President Xi Jinping’s recent exhortation to Communist Party officials to promote a “credible, loveable and respectable China”, they showed little sign of it at last weekend’s summit in Britain. The G7’s criticisms were strong enough for Beijing’s UK embassy to condemn what it called “baseless accusations” and of “slandering” and “interfering in China’s internal affairs.” The Nato summit then followed up by warning of China’s “coercive policies” and “use of disinformation” on Monday, leading Beijing to denounce the organisation’s “Cold War mentality”.
