(7th March 2016) The Boston Global Forum, as part of its BGF-G7 Summit Initiative, urges the national leaders at the G7 Summit in Japan May 26-27 to discuss these crucial topics:
- The need for stronger action to fight cyber-terrorism and other cyber-pathologies through global cooperation, including through the adoption of such programs as the BGF’s Ethics Code of Conduct for Cyber Peace and Security.
- The need to eliminate ISIS and similar terrorist groups, in part through such programs as the Global Learning and Global Citizenship Education program based at the University of California at Los Angeles and of which the BGF is a member.
- The urgent need to stop China’s reef and island seizures and militarization in the South China Sea. The BGF has recommended creating a Pacific Security Alliance of the U.S., Japan, Vietnam, South Korea, the Philippines and Australia to thwart Chinese hegemony in that sea. That hegemony could imperil freedom of navigation in a region with very important global trade routes. Of course, Japan and the U.S. are G7 members.
The BGF realizes that there are many other important threats, such as Russia’s aggressive expansionism, global warming, new disease pandemics, the refugee crisis spawned by wars in the Mideast and a potential new global recession. However, the BGF considers that the three issues bulleted above can be successfully and promptly addressed with enough will and ingenuity on the part of G7 member nations.