German Chancellor Angela Merkel today urged China to do more to halt climate change.
China's Premier Wen Jiabao greets German Chancellor Angela Merkel at the Great Hall of the People in Beijing today. Image: Reuters.
She also pressed for stronger protection of intellectual property rights and said the ground rules for gathering resources should be the same worldwide, an apparent criticism of China's relations with Sudan.
China has sizeable economic interests in Sudan and has faced accusations that aid from Beijing feeds violence in Darfur.
Premier Wen Jiabao said China would do everything it could to fight product piracy but that there were differences concerning climate change.
"The Chinese wish, like all people, for blue skies, green hills and clear water," he said. But Mr Wen added that the task of reducing emissions was tougher in China than in Germany because it had more people had not yet reached economic growth of industrialised countries in terms of GDP per capita.
"China has taken part of the responsibility for climate change for only 30 years while industrial countries have grown fast for the last 200 years," he said.
Ms Merkel's trip comes four months before world environment ministers meet in Bali to try to launch new talks to extend the Kyoto Protocol beyond 2012.
At a June summit chaired by Ms Merkel, G8 leaders agreed to pursue substantial, if unspecified cuts, in greenhouse gases and work with the UN on a new deal to fight global warming.
China will overtake the United States by 2008 as the world's leading emitter of greenhouse gases.