TONY BLAIR’S hopes of persuading President Bush to adopt a wide-ranging plan of action on climate change were strengthened yesterday when Beijing announced that President Hu would attend the G8 summit in Scotland.
Mr Hu’s visit will be his first to Britain and only the second by a Chinese leader to a G8 summit.
Washington’s past reluctance to act on climate change, including Mr Bush’s rejection of the Kyoto Protocol, has partly been driven by concern that emerging countries such as China and India, which will become bigger polluters as their economies continue to grow, are not signed up to the process. But with China, India and Mexico at Gleneagles, Mr Blair will press for a farreaching international programme to develop new technologies and alternative sources of energy.
Mr Blair has long accepted that the Americans will not sign up to the Kyoto accords, but officials say that he is confident that he can encourage Mr Bush to sign up to a comprehensive action plan.
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Britain says that America is not getting the credit it should for spending more than any other country on developing alternative energy sources.
Mr Hu’s decision to attend the summit is a diplomatic success for Mr Blair, and the Prime Minister is expected to reciprocate by going to China in the autumn. He will also visit India.
Much of Mr Blair’s international agenda would be difficult to implement without the support, or at least the presence, of China at the summit. Reform of the global financial system and a united stance on climate change are unthinkable without input from the second largest owner of international currencies, after Japan, and the world’s second biggest polluter, after America.
In the run-up to the summit, there have been high-level discussions on whether China, with its robust economic growth, should be made a permanent member of the G8.
Chinese membership could restore to the informal gathering the enormous power and relevance it enjoyed when it was first set up in the late 1970s. Countries such as France, which are increasingly critical of American global power, are likely to welcome such a step towards greater multilateralism.
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Russian membership has undermined the main argument against Chinese membership — its lack of a fully democratic government.
For Foreign and Commonwealth Office handlers, one of the trickiest parts of summit protocol will be the positioning of the Chinese and Japanese leaders, whose governments have engaged in a war of words in recent months over attitudes in Japan to Second World War atrocities.
Relations between China and Japan further plummeted over Tokyo’s candidacy for a permanent seat on the United Nations Security Council. Whether their leaders will meet for formal bilateral talks at the summit is unclear.
Liu Jianchao, the Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman, said: “Preparations for bilateral meetings and specific arrangements are still under way and I do not have any specific information.”