The leaders of China and Brazil raised their voices on Wednesday against trade protectionism by rich nations and urged them to work instead towards fighting poverty -- the "worst of all weapons of mass destruction."
Speaking at a World Bank conference on poverty alleviation, Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao joined Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva in singling out developed nations on trade. Wen also said they should help relieve the debt burdens of developing countries and accelerate technology transfers.
"We cannot allow cows in some developed countries to receive two dollars in subsidies every day while half of the people in the world must survive on even less than that," Lula said, prompting applause.
A champion of the poor in Brazil, Lula said the international agenda was focused excessively on security while poverty was "the worst of all weapons of mass destruction."
The World Bank has said that out of some six billion people on the planet, close to one billion own 80 percent of the resources while another one billion struggled to survive on a dollar a day.
Lula, a former metalworker who said he knew poverty and hunger, said Brazil was pursuing social programs to eliminate hunger, reduce poverty and improve literacy.
Presidential goals
"When I took office I said if at the end of my mandate each Brazilian man and woman could eat at least three round meals a day, it would have been worth it being president," he said.
He called for a change in attitude to fight poverty through a new development model that would make poverty a political as well as a social issue to help meet the Millennium Developmental Goals set out at the United Nations in 2000.
One of those goals is to halve the proportion of the world's population living in extreme poverty by 2015.
World Bank President James Wolfensohn said China was chosen to host the poverty conference because of its success in lifting some 400 million people from poverty over the past two decades.
Wolfensohn said China's long-term approach to poverty alleviation and other economic issues, typically executed through a series of five-year plans, offered a model to other countries.
Although China is widely seen as having made great strides in alleviating poverty, it also suffers from a widening urban-rural divide that has become a major headache for policy leaders wary of potentially widespread social discontent.
Lula is in China to seek business and strengthen an alliance he hopes might counter U.S. and European influence on the world stage. China is a huge market for Brazilian farm exports and is set to be Brazil's No. 2 trading partner in 2004.