US scholars call for G7 membership expansion to include Korea, Australia

This photo shows fish and wildlife officers patrolling an area of Kananaskis where the leaders of the G7 will meet in Alberta, Canada, June 9. Reuters-Yonhap

Prominent U.S. scholars have called for the membership expansion of the Group of Seven (G7) major industrialized countries to include Korea and Australia, as they asserted the need for reform to better equip the group to play a greater role in global governance and "meet the moment."

Victor Cha, president of the Geopolitics and Foreign Policy Department at the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS); CSIS President and CEO John Hamre; and John Ikenberry, professor of politics and international affairs at Princeton University, made the call in a Foreign Affairs article published Wednesday.

The article, titled "How Global Governance Can Survive: With the Right Reforms, the G-7 Can Sustain the Rules-Based Order," comes as new Korean President Lee Jae-myung plans to attend the G7 summit slated to take place in Alberta, Canada, from Sunday through Tuesday.

The three scholars made the case for G7 reform, stressing that G7 members need to bolster their ranks, streamline their procedures and strengthen the group's legitimacy "in the eyes of the world" in order to turn the body into one that can sustain the rules-based order.

"Australia and Korea should be at the front of the line to join the G-7. G-7 representatives opine that any new members must be responsible stewards of the international economy, be capable of and committed to assuming this role, and, importantly, have the trust of the other G-7 members," they said in the piece.

"Canberra and Seoul clearly meet this standard," they added.

They noted that Korea is a "technological and cultural powerhouse" and has the largest economy among non-G-7 industrialized democracies except for India and Brazil, and that Australia has a per capita gross domestic product larger than that of all G-7 states except the United States.

They also underscored that both Seoul and Canberra have already taken leading roles in addressing issues that preoccupy the G-7.

"Australia has shone as an example of a country standing up to economic coercion by China ... Australia is also a key supplier of critical minerals to other industrialized democracies," they said.

"Korea is a major provider of economic and indirect military assistance to Ukraine, and it is a critical player, along with the United States and Japan, in protecting the lead in critical emerging semiconductor chip technology in the West's competition with China."

Calling the Indo-Pacific the "center of gravity" in global commerce and global politics, the scholars said that adding Korea and Australia to the G-7 could boost the representation of the wider Indo-Pacific, giving the region's interests a stronger voice than Japan can offer alone.

Currently the G7 comprises U.S., Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan and Britain.