China Perspective

Beware of claims on China's 'greater int'l responsibility'

(Xinhua)
Updated: 2010-09-27 08:13

BEIJING - Behind the groundless suspicion over China's status as a developing country are the so-called allegations of greater "China responsibility" and developed countries' intentions to shun their own international responsibility.

The Newsweek website last month quoted Bernard Baumohl, executive director of the Economic Outlook Group, a Wall Street advisory firm, as saying that "China can no longer be called an emerging economy" and must "come to terms with a greater international responsibility."

The allegation deserves more careful reading. As Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao said Thursday at the UN, "China is still in the primary stage of socialism and remains a developing country," with the per capita GDP hovering low, nationwide development being at an imbalanced level, and a big population still living under the poverty line.

It is impossible, by drawing China away from the world of developing countries, to change China's current development situation and bring Chinese people a high-level standard of living like that of developed countries.

So what is the real intention of all the skepticism?

Western countries often connect their arguments with such terms as "responsibility" and "duty." Baumohl's statement is just an example. In fact, some developed countries intend to impose more undue duties on China, shift the attention of the international community from themselves and shirk their own responsibility.

Most developed countries have not fulfilled their commitments to developing countries regarding the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs).

Take the official development assistance (ODA), a key anti-poverty effort, for example. Developed countries promised 30 years ago to devote 0.7 percent of the GDP to help poor countries, but up to date only Denmark, Luxemburg, Holland, Norway and Sweden have achieved the normal standard set by the UN.

In a recently released report titled The Global Partnership for Development at a Critical Juncture, the UN pointed out that among the most urgent areas identified in the report, there is a current shortfall of about US$20 billion in the annual level of aid as agreed five years ago by the Group of Eight (G8).

At their Gleneagles meeting, G8 members pledged that by 2010, they would increase ODA by 50 billion dollars and double aid to Africa. However, the current funding gap on commitments to Africa alone is over 16 billion dollars.

There also has been no significant reduction in the tariffs imposed by developed countries. Only 81 percent of the least developed countries' exports, excluding armaments and oil, have acquired duty-free status in industrialized countries' markets. This falls short of the 2005 commitment made by WTO members in Hong Kong, which allows 97 percent of exports from the poorest countries to enter rich-country markets without duties or quotas.

"It's more helpful to give a loaf of bread than a rubber cheque," Premier Wen said in his speech at one of UN meetings last week.

Actually, most developing countries have called on developed countries to fulfill their promises and implement their major responsibilities in assisting developing countries.

However, some developed countries, which failed to honor their pledged commitments, have asked China to take the responsibility that they themselves should have assumed. It's all the more obvious that similar incidents have happened on issues like climate change and trade balance.

On the issue of carbon emission reduction, some developed countries deliberately ignored the fact that China has a low per capita figure of energy consumption, and hyped the alleged news that China has become the world's largest energy consumer, in a bid to force China to take inappropriate responsibility.

A look at developed countries themselves would find that major emission countries, including the United States, Japan and some European countries, tried their best to evade the emission-reduction responsibility.

The developing world should not be deceived by the intentions of some Western countries.

As a Chinese saying goes: responsibility is weightier than Mount Tai (a well-known high mountain in China). During past years, China has made big efforts in assisting other developing countries and has always stood by them, taking moral responsibility to help its developing brothers.

Moreover, the "spillover effect" of China's economic development has benefited many developing countries.

Any attempt to draw China away from the developing world will undoubtedly harm the overall interests of the developing countries.