Tokyo - Economic powers and developing nations traded blame on Wednesday over the collapse of global trade talks amid a row over food tariffs, but expressed hope the marathon efforts are not yet dead.
The breakdown of the World Trade Organisation negotiations was met with disappointment from world leaders but was cheered by Japanese and South Korean farmers who fear an influx of cheap agricultural imports.
Tokyo, which zealously protects its farmers, issued a thinly veiled criticism of its regional economic rivals after the breakdown of the talks.
"The economic weight of China and India has been increasing," said Japan's top government spokesperson Nobutaka Machimura.
"They need to take more responsibility."
US business lobbies also blamed China and India for insisting on protecting their farmers.
"India and China are emerging powers, but with great power comes great responsibility," the US Chamber of Commerce said in a statement.
But Chinese state media slammed some unnamed developed economies for caring too much about their own interests.
"This selfish and short-sighted behaviour directly caused the failure of this small-scale WTO ministerial meeting, which will lead to a series of serious consequences," the Xinhua news agency said in an editorial.
Argentina blamed wealthy nations for failing to provide enough concrete benefits for developing countries.
"On the side of the developed countries there was very little willingness to provide concessions on commercial matters, but plenty of ambition to obtain benefits for themselves," Argentine Foreign Minister Jorge Taiana said.
Failure to settle row
The Geneva talks collapsed on Tuesday as the United States and India failed to settle a row on food tariffs during days of wrangling.
India has continually insisted that it will not sacrifice the interests of its millions of subsistence farmers to clinch a Doha Round deal.
China called the breakdown a "tragic failure" and expressed disappointment over the inability of those involved to reach a consensus.
The talks broke down because of the "inability of two countries to bridge the gap between their positions," Commerce Minister Chen Deming said, apparently alluding to the standoff between the United States and India.
Japanese farmers, however, welcomed the failure to strike a deal.
"We are relieved, if not delighted, at the collapse of the talks," said Yoshiyuki Kiri, an official at a union of agricultural cooperatives in the southern prefecture of Kagoshima.
He said a proposed agreement on the table at the WTO talks "would have killed our farming and the whole community."
There were concerns that the collapse of the talks would hit African countries particularly hard.
The breakdown of talks on a world trade pact has "gravely undermined" African countries' efforts to fight poverty, warned Kenya's trade minister, Uhuru Kenyatta.
Representatives of Brazil's huge farm and biofuel sectors said they would be especially hurt by the failure to reach an accord.
"This WTO accord was important for Brazil because it would have opened markets in all the countries," said the head of the Export Association of Brazil, Jose Augusto de Castro.
The talks - the latest in the Doha Round of global free trade negotiations launched in 2001 - had been seen as a last-ditch bid to strike a deal.
But there was guarded optimism in the wake of their collapse that the dream of a global free trade deal might not be completely dead.
"It's too early to say, but the bottom line is we can't give up," said Indian Ambassador Ujal Singh Bhatia.
Australian Trade Minister Simon Crean said: "This is by no means the end of the road. It is not the end of the Doha Round."
- AFP