China will not be at the G7 table in France, but its role in trade, critical minerals and industrial supply chains is set to shape the summit all the same.
The Group of Seven meets in France this week with one of the world economy’s central powers outside the room. China is not a member of the club of advanced democracies, and its exclusion is politically unsurprising. Economically, however, it is increasingly difficult to discuss global stability, trade, technology or industrial resilience without Beijing at the centre of the conversation.
That tension is likely to run through the summit. An Associated Press analysis published on 14 June argued that China’s absence from the G7 now looks increasingly awkward given its weight in the global economy and its influence over the issues leaders are expected to discuss. For Europe, the question is not whether China should be invited into the G7. It is whether the G7 can still shape economic security when so many of its vulnerabilities run through Chinese supply chains.
China Outside the Room, China on the Agenda
The G7 was created in the 1970s as a forum for major industrial democracies to coordinate responses to economic shocks. China, then still far from its current role in global manufacturing and finance, was not part of that architecture. Half a century later, Beijing is the world’s second-largest economy, a dominant manufacturing power and a central actor in the technologies that now define strategic competition.
The practical result is a summit paradox. Leaders can meet without China, but they cannot easily meet around China. Trade imbalances, electric vehicles, semiconductors, batteries, solar panels, digital infrastructure and critical minerals all point back to the same question: how much dependence on one authoritarian industrial power can democratic economies tolerate?
That question has become more urgent for Europe because the political argument over China has moved beyond tariffs. It is now about leverage. Recent strains in EU-China diplomacy have already shown how commercial disputes can spill into official channels. China’s decision to cancel high-level meetings with EU officials came as trade tensions hardened, a shift that underlined how economic friction can quickly become diplomatic pressure. That earlier dispute over EU-China trade tensions now sits inside a broader G7 debate about resilience.
Rare Earths Turn Dependence Into Security Policy
The most visible pressure point is critical minerals. Rare earths and related materials are essential for permanent magnets, electric vehicles, wind turbines, electronics, missiles and advanced defence systems. Europe’s industrial transition and its security ambitions both rely on inputs that are difficult to replace quickly.
The European Union has already recognised this vulnerability. The Critical Raw Materials Act sets benchmarks for domestic extraction, processing and recycling, while seeking to reduce reliance on any single external supplier. Yet legislation cannot instantly create mines, processing plants or trusted alternative supply chains. Diversification takes years, while export controls or licensing delays can bite immediately.
That is why rare earths matter at a G7 summit even when no formal China session is announced. The issue connects industrial strategy with national security. If China can influence access to materials required for clean technology, defence production and advanced manufacturing, then dependence becomes more than a commercial risk. It becomes a strategic constraint.
Europe’s Dilemma Is Not Decoupling
For Europe, the answer is unlikely to be a clean break with China. The economic relationship is too large, and European governments remain divided over how confrontational their policy should become. Germany, France, Italy and other major economies all have different levels of exposure to Chinese demand, Chinese inputs and Chinese competition.
The more realistic debate is over de-risking: reducing the most dangerous dependencies while keeping trade open where possible. That sounds moderate, but it is difficult in practice. It requires investment, coordination, public procurement choices, stockpiling decisions and closer partnerships with countries that can supply critical materials or host processing capacity. It also requires European governments to accept that resilience often costs more than efficiency.
The G7 format can help by giving like-minded economies a venue to coordinate standards, financing and supply-chain partnerships. It can also expose the limits of coordination. The United States is often more willing to use hard-edged trade and technology controls. Japan has long experience of rare-earth vulnerability. Canada and Australia have resources. Europe has regulation, market size and industrial demand, but still needs faster execution.
A Summit Test for Economic Security
The immediate test is whether leaders can move beyond familiar language about resilience. Previous G7 statements have promised to reduce coercive dependencies, strengthen supply chains and protect critical technologies. The challenge now is to translate that vocabulary into visible capacity: alternative mineral projects, processing hubs, strategic reserves, trusted supplier networks and credible financing.
China’s absence from the G7 may make political unity easier. It also makes the underlying problem harder to ignore. A group designed to coordinate advanced democracies is meeting at a time when the world’s most consequential manufacturing power sits outside its membership but inside nearly every serious economic-security file.
For Europe, that is the real story. The summit is not simply about whether the G7 can confront China. It is about whether Europe and its partners can reduce the ways in which China can constrain them. The answer will not come from one communique in France. But the agenda will show whether strategic dependence is still being treated as a warning, or finally as an operational problem.
