Foreign and Military Affairs

Premier Wen at Copenhagen conference

(Xinhua News Agency/People's Daily)
Updated: 2009-12-25 17:14

At 20:00 on 17th, Premier Wen attended the dinner hosted by Queen Margrethe II of Denmark. It marked the beginning of the high-level segment of the Copenhagen conference.

Full Coverage:
Summit in Copenhagen

Something unexpected however happened during the dinner. A foreign leader mentioned to Premier Wen inadvertently that a certain country would call a small-group leaders' meeting following the dinner to discuss a new text. This caught Premier Wen's attention, because the list of invited countries held by this leader had the name China on it, yet the Chinese side had never received any notification about this meeting. Premier Wen then sought confirmation with some other leaders, who told him that indeed such a meeting was scheduled after the dinner. It was really absurd that the country who called for the meeting never informed China.

Premier Wen concluded that this was no small matter. Since the start of the conference, there had been cases where individual or small group of countries put forward new texts in disregard of the principle of openness and transparency, arousing strong complaints from other participants. He immediately left for the hotel, where he convened a meeting to discuss how to respond.

Upon Premier Wen's instruction, Vice Foreign Minister He rushed to the venue of the small-group meeting and raised serious concerns with the host for arranging such a meeting with hidden motives. He stressed that the principle of openness and transparency must be respected. No one should try to form small circles or force decisions upon others, or they would risk leading the conference to failure.

In the meantime, speculations and rumors of all sorts were prevalent: some developed countries were planning together privately to put more pressure on China; major emerging countries were vehemently obstructing the negotiation process, and the conference was therefore very likely to end in failure; developed countries, unhappy with China’s rejection of MRV, refused to offer more financial assistance to small island states; the developing camp was beginning to fall apart; a certain big power intended to propose its own text, and so on and so forth. All signs pointed to a less and less optimistic picture.

Deep into the night, the wind was blowing harder. All parties were making their final preparations.

"A message of confidence and hope" – The world was watching Copenhagen and China announced its firm commitment to advancing mankind’s historical process of countering climate change.

At 8:30 on 18th, before attending the leaders' event, Premier Wen had a meeting with the Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, who had just flown in.

China and India are neighbors and both are major developing countries. At this important moment, whether the two countries could come together for close cooperation would affect not only the interests of the developing world, but also the progress of the conference.

Premier Wen and Prime Minister Singh are old friends. This was their second meeting in the year. They both knew that only solidarity and cooperation would bring about a true "Asian Century" of harmony, development and prosperity. And this would require the vision, courage and resolve of statesmen.

Premier Wen started by making an overview of the latest developments of the conference. He also shared his views on the situation and sought Prime Minister Singh's opinion. Touched by Premier Wen's sincere words and gesture, the Indian prime minister said he fully echoed Premier Wen's comments. He pointed to the broad consensus and common interests shared by India and China on climate change and expressed satisfaction with bilateral cooperation in advancing the negotiation process in Copenhagen. The two leaders agreed that no matter what might happen, China and India would stay in close touch and coordination to uphold the interests of the developing countries.

The Bella Center in the south of Copenhagen is the biggest exhibition center in Scandinavian countries. It was the main venue for the Copenhagen conference.

At 9:45, Premier Wen arrived at the Center for the leaders' event scheduled to begin at 10 o'clock. The event attracted worldwide attention. However, neither the host nor the UN Secretary-General showed up at 10 and the stage was all empty. People began to speculate what had happened, but no one turned up to give an explanation.

Some leaders came to say hello to Premier Wen and Premier Wen had friendly chat with them. The clock was ticking, wearing down people's enthusiasm and expectations for the leaders’ event.

Seeing this, Premier Wen immediately made the decision to call another meeting among the BASIC leaders. There was no time to get a meeting room. The four leaders simply sat around a small coffee table in the lounge outside the plenary hall and started their discussion. They were resolved to work for an outcome at this final moment.