Today, Pascal Lamy, the WTO director general, spoke at the opening ceremony of the WTO ministerial. He talked about the need to combine "hopes and strength" in order to advance the negotiations which will need to be completed in 2006, writes Glenys Kinnock.
Sounded like cloud-cuckoo-land to me! He was accompanied by chanting demonstrators who, in spite of rigorous Chinese organisation and security, had managed to fill three rows. But, in typical Lamy fashion he carried on regardless.
He has legendary energy and determination, but he will need it to deal with the logjam of issues the negotiations face.
As the limousines and the shuttle buses for people like me left the building, we saw some protesting Korean rice farmers hurl themselves into the harbour only to be swiftly rescued. Meanwhile, hordes of armed police descended on the crowd.
Other tensions throughout the day have continued. The US is sitting on its hands, refusing to budge on cotton until the EU responds to demands to do more on agriculture.
We talked about this and continuing concerns about sugar and bananas with the secretary of state, Alan Johnson.
He, incidentally, is very keen on his poker analogy: time for everyone to "turn their cards", he said. Time to shuffle cards and deal fairly. His strong commitment to development issues is not in question.
However, we have to ask how can we square the commitments the UK has to address the need for funds to enable sugar-cane producing countries to modernise and restructure when we can't identify where the funds will come from?
The decisions taking place at the EU summit this week on the EU budget offer no comfort to them, especially when they are aware that our own farmers and sugar industry are guaranteed compensation of 8bn euros.
There are seemingly intractable issues. The Chinese whispers are today running thick and fast and no doubt we'll hear even more tomorrow.
Glenys Kinnock is blogging from the WTO summit all week. Read her post from yesterday.
