International People's Front
Unity Statement of the Peoples’ Summit Against G7
May 18, 2023 – Kyoto, Japan
The G7 countries (the US, Canada, UK, France, Germany, Italy, Japan) represent the rich and powerful minority over the poor and less powerful majority of the world. It is an institution of global economic and political supremacy.
We, organizers, activists and peace advocates from within and outside the G7 countries are united in our call to fight back against this alliance and the exploitative system it upholds.
Junk G7!
As of 2020, G7 members account for over half of global net wealth (at over $200 trillion). They also make up anywhere from 32% to 46% of global gross domestic product with the US far ahead at $25 trillion last year and the others between $1 and $5 trillion. Yet, their countries only make up 10% of the world’s population (770 million people).
The G7 openly refers to the world’s working people as “human capital,” signifying their view of them as merely tools for further investment. Meanwhile, 100 million are estimated houseless worldwide with 1.6 billion lacking adequate housing while nearly one in three lack access to adequate food. Global inflation peaked at 8% during the Covid-19 pandemic (2.5% higher than the 2008 housing crisis) while the global price of bread has risen 40%. Where is the investment in that?
To stop the theft, to stop the exploitation, we must junk the G7!
US Out of Asia Pacific!
2023 host country Japan is the US’s key partner in the Asia-Pacific, similar to Canada in North America and the other G7 members in Western Europe. Japan houses over 130 US military installations, the largest number in the world outside the US, and it is the primary port of the US 7th Fleet, the Navy’s signature force in the Pacific. 375,000 US troops alone are dedicated to the Asia-Pacific region, 50,000 of which are based in Japan.
The 2023 Summit has hinted at building stronger US-Japan military cooperation against China, Russia and North Korea, backed up by all other G7 members. Canada, France and the UK all announced their own versions of the US “Pivot to Asia” in recent months to prepare for this moment. Japan has emerged in the last few years as an offensive military power in the region for the first time since World War 2 and announced over $300 billion in military spending over the next three years. This would raise Japan to the third-largest military spender in the world after the US (by far the largest) and China.
The US has made recent advances in its AUKUS alliance with Australia and the so-called “Washington Declaration” with South Korea that have promised to place US nuclear submarines in both countries. The US held the largest ever Balikatan joint-military exercise in the Philippines this year and promises the largest ever Talisman Sabre and Rim of the Pacific exercises in Australia and Hawai’i next year.
This militarization of the region is paired with the upcoming Indo-Pacific Economic Framework (IPEF) that would put 40% of the world economy into a stronger free trade orbit of the US while securing the critical mineral resources and digital infrastructure needed to supply the US-led alliances with all the weapons and tech they need to attempt a checkmate of China.
Yet, a rising military, diplomatic and nuclear armed power like China will not be checkmated into submission. This build-up to war in the Pacific promises supreme danger to the people of the world. For a war might begin here, but would spread to every corner of the world.
End the Build up to War!
the G7 is the most geographically widespread nuclear alliance, making their 2023 Summit in Hiroshima, one of only two cities to have ever been attacked by nuclear weapons an affront to the survivors and family of those killed, and to all peace-loving people of the world who have fought nearly a century for a world without nuclear weapons.
Japan has allowed US troops to practice beach-landing operations in its small islands south of Okinawa, closer to the contested island of Taiwan than any US troops have ever been allowed to deploy. Meanwhile, US, South Korean and Japanese exercises on the Korean Peninsula have simulated air invasions of North Korea. The seemingly unending stream of military hardware to Ukraine from NATO, the G7’s premier military alliance, has now included fighter jets and long-range missiles. This has brought the nuclear-armed US and its allies closer to conflict with three other nuclear-armed states than ever before.
The G7 leads this build up to world war. It is not “defensive” as it claims, but deliberate provocation. We must fight back if we are to halt the firing shot of a nuclear conflict.
Peoples’ Fightback Against the G7!
The G7’s actions since its inception prove that the self-serving and imperialist interest of the business class can never be negotiated away. Only a direct, united confrontation with the alliance itself can pave the way for any alternative system.
We must keep using our voices, our bodies and our collective efforts in whatever way possible and refuse to be silent, no matter the risks we must face. This is what this moment of crisis, a crisis created by the G7 powers themselves, calls on each of us to do today and for all days moving forward!
We hereby resolve to:
- Continue mass education campaign against the G7
- Support each other’s’ movements against militarism at the national level and connect it back to US imperialism and the G7 powers by building the International Peoples’ Front as the primary alliance against imperialist, war and fascism today.
- Identify sectoral struggles that can be brought under the banner of the IPF
- Support peoples’ economic struggles against G7 neoliberal policies (land struggles, workplace struggles, etc.)
- Support the organizing of migrant workers and expose the impacts of war on migrants (i.e. being used as human shields)
- End military aid from the G7 and other Global North countries to puppet states in the Global South
- Resist US military bases and installations in our countries and support these struggles worldwide. Monitor the development of new US and other foreign security agreements and alliances with countries around the world.
- Carry out a No Nukes campaign against US-led hegemony of nuclear weapons and primary driver of the nuclear arms race and its connection to the nuclear power industry
- Join forces against the 2024 Rim of the Pacific joint military exercises
- Support the fight against the Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) meetings happening in the US 2023 and Peru 2024
- Expose and oppose the national chauvinism, racism and discrimination of social minorities and indigenous peoples that follows in the wake of militarist expansion
