China rejects climate change criticism
Quoting an ancient Chinese proverb, “my conscience is clear despite the slander of others,” China’s Premier Wen Jiabao fired back Sunday against allegations he had snubbed President Barack Obama during climate-change negotiations at the end of last year.
In unusually candid comments, Mr. Wen defended his decision to send a relatively low-ranking official to a meeting on the sidelines of the Copenhagen talks that included Mr. Obama. At the time senior U.S. officials had said Mr. Wen had skipped the meeting as part of efforts to block progress toward a binding agreement.
“Last year on Dec. 17, the night before the leaders’ meeting in Copenhagen, the Danish queen hosted a banquet for the participating leaders,” Mr. Wen said. “At that meeting, I learned from a European leader that there would be a meeting of a small number of countries after the banquet that night. He showed me a list, and although China’s name was on the list, I was shocked because I had not received any notification.”
Mr. Wen said a formal complaint was lodged.
“Why was China not notified of this meeting? So far no one has given us any explanation of this, and it is still a mystery to me,” he said during a news conference at the close of the annual meeting of the full session of the National People’s Congress, China’s legislature.
His comments didn’t directly address his own absence at a Dec. 18 morning meeting, which included Mr. Obama as well as U.K. Prime Minister Gordon Brown. In that meeting, Deputy Foreign Minister He Yafei took part as China’s representative, according to meeting participants.
Nevertheless, Mr. Wen’s comments indicate the extreme sensitivity among Chinese leaders at how China is viewed by the world. Opening a rare window on the behind-the-scenes workings of Chinese diplomacy, the premier spent almost as much time giving China’s version of events in Copenhagen as he devoted to a discussion of China’s currency policy.
China was blamed by many delegates for the failure of the Copenhagen talks to produce any binding agreements. At the last minute, the negotiators attempted to salvage the talks with a voluntary, nonbinding Copenhagen Accord. China’s says developing countries shouldn’t be subject to the same limits on carbon emissions as richer, developed countries such as the U.S. But China has pledged to slow down the rate of its emissions.
“It still baffles me why some people keep trying to make an issue of China. The issue of climate change concerns human survival, the interests of all countries. We are justified to stick to principle of common but differentiated responsibilities, and China will continue to work with other countries to tackle the issue of climate change,” Mr. Wen said Sunday.
China first put out this account of events in a lengthy Dec. 25 report by Xinhua, the state-run news agency. But this marks the first time the premier has addressed the issue directly, and is in line with an increasingly vocal foreign policy that has come out of China’s rising self-confidence and economic clout.
Source: WSJ