L’Aquila (Italy), July 09: Chinese president Hu Jintao’s abrupt departure for home on the eve of the G8/G5 summit in this earthquake-hit Italian town dashed hopes of significant progress in tackling the two most critical issues facing the world today — the global financial crisis and climate change.
The official Chinese explanation was that Jintao flew back because of continuing ethnic unrest in China’s western province of Xinjiang. But given that before the departure was announced, summit host and Italian president Silvio Berloscuni had blasted Chinese “resistance” on climate goals, there may be more to Jintao’s last-minute decision to skip the elite gathering than meets the eye.
Although special envoy Dai Bingguo will represent China, Jintao’s absence has left a big hole, especially in the meeting of G5 leaders who are scheduled to hold talks separately on Wednesday evening before they meet with G8 leaders on Thursday.
Prime minister Manmohan Singh is now the main voice from Asia at the high table of emerging economies and may find himself pretty much alone in fending off demands from G8 nations for stringent emission curbs to offset effects of climate change.
Climate change is one of the few issues on which India and China see eye-to-eye, with both insisting that western industrialised nations should adhere to stricter emission norms than emerging economies, which are fighting to catch up with their richer counterparts.
The Sino-India duet was very much in evidence at Tuesday’s pre-summit discussions where officials from the two countries are believed to have blocked calls from G8 representatives to sign up for a goal of cutting down greenhouse gas emissions by 50% by 2050. The draft document that was agreed upon makes no mention of targets.
While China may have felt it is not worth its president’s while to attend the summit in view of deep differences that have emerged, India is staying the course. Singh went about his scheduled business on Wednesday, beginning with a bilateral meeting with British prime minister Gordon Brown. He will meet many leaders, and officials hope to squeeze in a “pull-aside” with US president Barack Obama on Thursday. Even before the summit has begun properly, questions have been raised about the viability of continuing with the G8/G5 format. Anyway, major decisions on the crisis would be deferred to the G20 meet in the US in September.
–Agencies