According to recent press reports, a senior member of the Chinese negotiation team at the Copenhagen cliamate talks has been removed from his post.
The person in question is He Yafei and the source of the information is the Xinhau newsagency.
Oh to blame someone after a failed negotiation. I have seen it many times and the Chinese who always run the risk of being the villains are in the frame.
The allegations against the negotiatior include:
1 He was rude to the US negotiator, Todd Stern describing him as lacking common sense. By the way how many leading politicians display common sense?
2 He frustrated Barack Obama at his inability to make decisions. Is this a bad trait?
3 He astonished Angela Merkel by refusing to allow even rich countries to set a target to cut emissions by 2050. Did He insult Sarkosy as well?
4 He was out-ranked at meetings as the Chinese premier, Wen Jiabao refused to attend them due to fear of being saddled a result which he could not sell to the Chinese people.
Some observations.
Every mediation/negotiation which I have seen fail involves a blame game and normally it is unbalanced, emotional and inaccurate.
To blame just the Chinese is tempting, popular but most likely wrong.
By blaming other parties it denies us the opportunity to learn from our and others errors in the negotiation.
As a consequence the parties be they US, Chinese, UK, India should be doing the following:
1 Objectively why was not such a good deal at Copenhagen? Beyond the rhetoric, what did we do well? What did we do wrong? I suspect the protoganists neither have the willingness,the humility or the intelligence to go through this process.
2 Reviewing their preparation. The effective negotiatiors be they mediators, lawyers or parties all spend a great deal of time preparing.
3 Look how the team is working. My most effective clients help me develop a genuinely team environment with them. The team conquers all.
Justin Patten Solicitor