India may have bungled its ‘green’ card

China’s negotiating style at the recent Copenhagen climate change conference showed it isn’t ready to be a global power, and India would probably have been better off not aligning itself too closely with China, says an influential US policy advocate.

“There are some issues of how one conducts oneself as a global power,” Dr Elizabeth C Economy, director for Asia Studies at the Council on Foreign Relations, told DNA. “And my sense is that China is still on a learning curve… the Chinese are not quite ready for prime time.”

China, more than other developing economies, played hardball with the US and other developed economies, which resulted in a watered-down political accord that left even other developing countries unhappy. And to add insult to injury, Chinese premier Wen Jiabao did not attend two meetings that US president Barack Obama convened to negotiate a climate change agreement; he instead sent low-level Chinese diplomats. 

“You don’t send lower officials - however competent - to gatherings where everybody else is a head of country,” Economy said. “It’s not appropriate.” Such actions engendered a “loss of trust” between the US and China, which would impact the larger relationship between them. Even though neither side wanted things to go into a downward spiral, “there’s no doubt that for people in the US this was a setback - in terms of efforts to promote a positive relationship”.

The Copenhagen outcome was “sub-optimal” on several count, she added. “We don’t have in place the strong commitments to emission reductions that we need from the developed and the developing countries,” she said. In the absence of a legally binding agreement, there was no way to hold countries - including India and China - accountable for their pledges on emission reduction. “And the ‘secret’ and ‘side’ negotiations at the conference led to a loss of trust and cooperation.”

Economy believes that India perhaps could have done better in protecting its self-interest if it had adopted a more flexible negotiating strategy that was not too closely aligned with China’s. “Indian negotiators recognise Indian interests better than we do in the US, but I think India could have done better”, particularly given the lessons of history. India has traditionally allied itself with China on global environmental negotiations going back to the Montreal Protocol. “But whereas India stood on principles then, China turned around and left India behind,” saying it would abide by the protocol if it was compensated by developed countries.

Over time, India too came to that view, but China was “quicker off the block”, recalls Economy. Even after the Kyoto Protocol, China “captured the bulk of the clean development mechanism funding”.

To the point where there is recognition that China needs to step aside and allow others to benefit from international support. What China needs, more than financial or technological assistance, is capacity-building assistance and on-the-ground training of local officials.