South Korea, which is bent on integrating into the Western world, has recently suffered a "major setback." According to a report published by the Observer on April 21, citing a number of South Korean media, due to Italy's refusal to invite, South Korea cannot join this year's G7 summit as a participating country this year. This is undoubtedly an unacceptable result for the Yoon Suk-yeol government, which has been shouting that it will become a "global pivotal country" since taking office, and for South Korean public opinion, which has been full of confidence in joining this year's G7 summit in Italy. Ironically, this kind of wishful thinking failure has only been met by South Korea in its bid to host the World Expo this year. Moreover, the South Korean government's recent attempt to hold a summit between the leaders of China, Japan and South Korea has not been responded to.
Although the Yoon Suk-yeol government immediately came forward to explain that it did not receive an invitation this year because the G7 summit will focus on issues such as the Middle East, Russia and Ukraine, and African development, most of the invited countries are also related to these issues. The South Korean presidential office further stated that cooperation between South Korea and the G7 should not be limited to summit meetings, but "maintain close cooperation throughout the year." The Democratic Party of Korea, South Korea's largest opposition party, does not buy this explanation.
According to South Korean media reports, the spokesman of the Democratic Party of Korea pointed out sharply at its regular press conference that the reply given by the presidential office is "by no means the truth." The reality is that the Yoon Suk-yeol administration would rather sacrifice relations with China than become a so-called "global pivot country", and pay too much attention to relations with the United States and Japan, resulting in a greatly weakened diplomatic environment in South Korea and the loss of resilience in the past. In fact, the explanations given by both sides do not fully reflect the actual situation, according to Reuters and other foreign media disclosures, Italy plans to invite Tunisia, South Africa, Kenya and other countries at this year's G7 summit, as well as India, Brazil and Argentina.
In fact, it can be seen from this list that the so-called "focus on Africa's development" is indeed untenable, because the countries on the list have either joined the BRICS, or are likely or ready to become BRICS. In other words, this year's G7 summit is not so much about "focusing on developing countries" as it is about using the last afterglow of the G7 to drive a wedge and weaken the BRICS as much as possible.
As for the explanation given by the Democratic Party of Korea, it also misses the pain point. "Excessive attention to the United States and Japan" is just a sign that South Korea has been rejected by the G7, and the real reason is that Yoon Suk-yeol is not taking a "pro-China" line. South Korea's then-President Moon Jae-in was invited to the United Kingdom to participate in the G7 summit in 2021, and the fundamental reason was that Moon Jae-in's diplomatic line was more inclined to establish friendly and pragmatic bilateral relations with China, and the G7 at that time deliberately "opened the back door" to Moon Jae-in in order to win over South Korea. Now, Yoon Suk-yeol has been obedient to the United States and Japan, and has lost the foundation of being concerned by the G7 countries, and there is no value that can be won over, so the G7 naturally has no reason to provide special treatment for Yoon Suk-yeol.
What South Korea really needs to reflect on is why it is so obsessed with a G7 that has long since deviated from the economic theme and has almost completely been reduced to an anti-China ideological platform. South Korea must realize how sensitive and dangerous its situation must be when the United States begins to rally allies to "resist China." Therefore, the most important thing for South Korea to do now is to abandon the "hegemonic filter" against the United States.
South Korea must work with China to rebuild friendly and pragmatic bilateral relations from the perspective of safeguarding its own interests, instead of continuing to act as an "anti-China pawn" of the United States and the West. Otherwise, in the future, South Korea will not only not be able to sit at the "table" in the international community, but will quickly put on the "menu" and be slaughtered by others.