Doha collapsed on Chinas political concern for farmers

IF ever there was proof of the falsity of the Olympic slogan, "One World, One Dream", it came last week as the World Trade Organisation's Doha round of talks collapsed.

And the Olympic host, China, which had played only a marginal role in the talks until recently, was at the centre of that failure.

This comprises an awesome - if somewhat worrying - example of China's emergence as a global power, just as the faltering international economy needed a boost.

It's all to do with the shifting balance of power in the world.

The Doha failure is bad news for Australia. The Australian Chamber of Commerce and Industry reckons that a successful completion of this multilateral round might have earned us an extra $7billion a year.

But for the world's poor, it's terrible news. They are usually the biggest beneficiaries of increased trade, as we have seen in recent years in the two biggest countries, China and India, where millions have stepped above the poverty line as their economies have opened up.

But it was China and India - together with a US that is floundering economically and diplomatically - that did Doha in.

This is not the first such event. China and India are also refusing to set targets for climate change emissions, and the prospects for a new all-encompassing Kyoto-successor deal are thus already looking pretty shaky.

Jonathan Fenby, a former editor of influential newspapers, including London's The Observer and the South China Morning Post, and the author of an excellent new history of modern China, says: "The conjunction of the Doha breakdown and the G8 flop on climate change has given a particularly acute illustration of how the world has changed, in particular with the emerging role of China and India."