Wikileaks Confirms Beijing Had No Interest In Copenhagen

There is a lot of chuff in the secret documents currently being drip fed to the world, like Prince Andrew said a naughty word, Obama doesn’t think that Cameron is cool, or Sarkozy sometimes acts like he is a king. There are however a couple of interesting nuggets:

UK DCM Wood said the UK Environment and Science
Minister had recently had talks with Chinese officials on
climate change. In the lead up to Copenhagen, China would
not agree to targets on emissions but was willing to be
constructive and would come to Copenhagen with a package of
action items related to nuclear power, renewable energy and
reforestation. Wood said his impression was that China could
be induced to do more on climate change.

Which correlates almost perfectly with the views set out in Low Carbon Plot. I would imagine that Wood’s impressions are not taken as seriously these days as they once were.

There is also an interesting snippet here about the Dalai Lama:

¶6. (C) UK DCM Chris Wood reported that China had requested
the UK not allow the Dalai Lama to transit London but
softened the demarche by requesting that government officials
not meet the Dalai Lama if he were to transit the country.
French DCM Nicholas Chapuis said China’s demarche was part of
a campaign to limit the Dalai Lama’s travel and noted that
the Beijing city government had threatened to break its
sister-city relationship with Paris if the Dalai Lama were to
receive an honorary citizen award from the French capital.
Ambassador Schaefer said Germany had not received such
demands from the Chinese, in spite of the Dalai Lama’s
frequent trips to Germany.

This differing treatment of Germany and the UK demonstrates that the UK is much much weaker in international affairs than is commonly recognized by the average man.

Hat Tip: Pierre Gosselin.