Hamburg - Beijing voiced reluctance Monday to accept
far-reaching cuts in greenhouse-gas emissions.
In the German city of Hamburg, Chinese Foreign Minister Yang
Jiechi said China was a developing nation and suggested it was up to
rich nations to shoulder the cuts.
Climate change was to be a key issue at the Asia Europe Meeting
(ASEM) on Tuesday among 43 Asian and European foreign ministers in
Hamburg.
In talks with three leading EU officials before the meeting
started, diplomats said Yang insisted there were three sorts of
emissions: luxury emissions, normal emissions and survival emissions.
'Ours are necessary for our survival,' he said, according to
diplomats who asked not to be quoted by name.
Meeting the media, Yang said, 'China is a developing country and
per-capita emission of greenhouse gases in China is much lower that
in developed nations. China is really in need of development.
'A substantial number of people in China are living under the
poverty line.'
China, with a population of 1.3 billion, has reportedly been
opening a new coal-fired electricity plant on average every second
day.
Japanese Foreign Minister Taro Aso met separately with Yang and
said the Chinese minister had shown 'great interest' in the climate
change issue. Japan has been proposing halving world emissions of
greenhouse gases by 2050.
Yang called Monday for the European Union to drop restrictions on
exports of high-technology products to China. The EU maintains the
ban is needed because of human-rights breaches in China.
Referring to China's 130-billion-euro (170-billion-dollar) trade
surplus with the EU, Yang said: 'There is potential for increasing
trade. China is not deliberately seeking a trade surplus with Europe,
and would like to import as much as possible.
'I hope that Europe will relax its restrictions on high-tech
exports to China,' he said after the meeting with three EU foreign
ministers led by Germany's Frank-Walter Steinmeier.
The European Union's commissioner for foreign relations, Benita
Ferrero-Waldner, gave no hint of changes in the trade sanctions.
She said the Europeans raised human-rights issues with Yang
Monday, including Chinese restrictions on the internet, freedom of
assembly and freedom of speech.
She said the EU directly asked Yang why an EU-hosted meeting in
Berlin on rights issues this month had not been able to take place.
Chinese envoys left Berlin in protest at the presence of Hong Kong
non-governmental organizations they do not approve of.
Steinmeier said negotiations were continuing between the EU and
China on a partnership agreement. Those talks began in 2003.
He added that more talks were also need on climate-protection
issues and he hoped a successor accord to the Kyoto Protocol, which
runs out in 2012, could be settled by the time of a UN climate summit
in Bali this December.
© 2007 dpa - Deutsche Presse-Agentur 
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