In an interview with Xinhua just four days before the United Nations Earth Summit, Sun Genghong, the CAIU chief, urged Western countries to make substantial efforts to shorten the gap between rich and poor nations.

The UN summit, formally known as the World Summit on Sustainable Development, is scheduled to be held in Johannesburg, South Africa, from Aug. 26 to Sept. 4.

Even 10 years after the first Rio Earth Summit in Brazil, which endorsed 27 principles on sustainable development, pollution, environmental decay and poverty are still continuing, with indiscriminate production and consumption modes unchanged, Sun said.

Over the past 10 years, there has been only limited progress in reducing poverty in the developing world, with more than 1.2 billion people crying for food and development assistance around the globe, Sun added.

Sun noted that the present international trade system designed by the developed countries does not favor the developing nations, which are struggling for survival in unfair international competition.

On the future of global sustainable development, the CAIU chief said, the international community should act to change the unfair international political and economic order as well as unequal international relations and to fight against ongoing hegemony and power politics.

The developed countries, which are focusing on the fight against global terrorism after the Sept. 11 terror attacks in the United States, have to depend on their developing counterparts for ensuring security, he stressed.

Only a reasonable political and economic world order can ensure an effective war against terrorism, Sun concluded.

(Xinhua News Agency August 23, 2002)