China urges the region to seek global peace through trade

Mainland officials push delegates to send a message to the WTO meeting in Cancun, Mexico

China's top trade officials put on a show of economic solidarity during the opening of the fifth Asia-Europe Economic Ministers' Meeting yesterday, saying economic development and co-operation is the key to world peace.

A laggard in development and a political malcontent in the 1960s, China has shed its anti-capitalist strategy and emerged as one of the world's top proponents of free trade.

In his opening speech to economic ministers from Asia and Europe, Minister of Commerce Lu Fuyuan said: 'At a time when the global economy is facing a slowdown, it is more important than ever for the world to unite all of our resources and to link up our economies.

'We must deepen our co-operation. No nation or district could develop on its own. Economic co-operation is the only way forward and fulfils all of our mutual needs.'

Mr Lu used his platform as chairman of the conference to try to persuade his counterparts from 25 Asian and European countries to reach a consensus to promote more free trade, in the run-up to the next round of world trade talks set for Cancun, Mexico, in September.

Yi Xiaozhun, a senior commerce ministry official who organised the conference, said: 'If this meeting can send a positive signal to the Cancun meeting [of the World Trade Organisation], then its meaning can be fully realised.'