Great Power Coflict

In late May, Prime Minister Boris Johnson of the United Kingdom floated the idea of creating a new international platform—D10, or Democracy 10 alliance. The D10 is to comprise the Group of Seven (G7) states and three others; it will be discussed formally at the G7 meeting in June. The proposed members of the alliance are the G7 countries (Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, the U.K. and the U.S.), along with Australia, India and South Korea. The purpose of this alliance is not entirely for mutual benefit. The agenda, Boris Johnson suggests, is to attack China. Many of the states in the D10 have been hit hard by the COVID-19 pandemic, and many of them (notably the U.K. and the U.S.) have started to blame China—rather than their own incompetence and the evisceration of their public health systems—for the high death toll.