From the outset, China was not included when major powers gathered in 1975 at a chateau outside Paris to fix a slumping global economy. That first meeting paved the way for annual summits by the G7 club of wealthy nations to forward their interests. No surprise there. Imagining Chinese revolutionary leader Mao Zedong brainstorming with US President Gerald Ford and other leaders would have been unthinkable. China was in turmoil and nowhere close to becoming an economic giant. Mao had also militarily supported Ho Chi Minh’s communists in Vietnam, defeating French and the US forces. He would have been the odd man out at the inaugural Rambouillet summit of six nations, which grew into the G7 when Canada joined the following year.
But as G7 counterparts gather again in France, China’s exclusion from the informal club looks odd, given its immense sway over the world’s economic well-being and affairs. Put simply: Without China, does the G7 make sense?
By the numbers, China would be a shoo-in if membership were determined only by economic success. Its economy, swollen by decades of growth since Mao’s death in 1976, now dwarfs those of G7 nations Germany, Japan, the United Kingdom, France, Italy and Canada — leaving only the United States to catch. By this measure, a G7 summit without China is arguably like a football World Cup without five-time winner Brazil.
John Kirton, a University of Toronto specialist on the G7, notes that China has transformed from a small, benign entity in 1975 into a great global dragon. He states that many understandably ask whether the G7 and the global community would be better off if China became a member, concluding that a plausible answer is yes.
A year ago, Donald Trump mused about possibly expanding the club to include China, calling it a good idea when asked by a journalist. However, an unwritten G7 rule has always been that it is reserved exclusively for democracies. The founding leaders declared in 1975 that they were each responsible for the government of an open, democratic society dedicated to individual liberty and social advancement. China would not have cleared that bar during Mao’s rule, nor would it do so now under President Xi Jinping. By multiple measures, including the annual Freedom in the World study, the World Press Freedom Index and the Canadian Fraser Institute’s ranking of economic freedom, China lags far behind G7 nations for civil liberties.
Nevertheless, China’s clout impacts all G7 countries in myriad ways. It sells far more goods than it buys, announcing a record trade surplus of almost $1.2 trillion in 2025, which remains a source of friction with other industrial powers. It controls supplies of crucial rare minerals, while its technological advances and growing military strength concern rivals. It also remains the world’s biggest emitter of climate-warming pollution.
All this means that China will be the elephant in the room at the Monday-to-Wednesday summit in the Alpine spa town of Evian-les-Bains. As host, French President Macron has carved out time for leaders to talk about rebalancing trade with China, amid fears that soaring Chinese exports of cars and other products could wreck G7 industries. Cedric Dupont, an international politics specialist at the Geneva Graduate Institute, noted that while the chemistry between Trump and other G7 leaders has been poor of late over various bones of contention, China could be an issue that unites them because they all agree that China poses a problem.
Analysts say that admitting China into the club could wreck its cohesion. Beijing’s authoritarian system, interests and positions on Russia, Iran and other major issues do not align with those of G7 democracies. Its presence could also test long-standing alliances. Kirton warns that China inside would be a Trojan horse, as individual members might be tempted to break G7 ranks to secure special favours from Beijing on economic, critical mineral and digital technology issues.
The G7’s last expansion — accepting Russia as a member in 1998 — also serves as a barrier. The club froze out Russian President Vladimir Putin when he seized Crimea from Ukraine in 2014, foreshadowing the full-scale war raging since 2022. Trump stated last year that excluding Russia was a very big mistake, but Kirton said the experience convinced other leaders that they should never take a chance on a less-than-fully democratic power becoming a member of their club again.