Ireland urges China to press Sudan on Darfur force
Nov 25, 2006 (DUBLIN) — Minister for Foreign Affairs Dermot Ahern yesterday appealed to China for help in persuading Sudan to accept the need for United Nations peacekeepers in the conflict-ridden Darfur region in western Sudan.
Addressing a conference at the Royal Irish Academy in Dublin on “The Rise of Asia in International Affairs”, Ahern said Asian leaders would be obliged by changing circumstances to “review their traditional approach of non-interference in the internal affairs of other states”.
This applied especially to China’s relationship with Sudan: “At this time of great difficulty, but also of some hope for Darfur, I would appeal especially to the Chinese government, as a permanent member of the Security Council, to continue – as it has recently done – to use its influence on the Sudanese government to help persuade it of the need for co-operation with the United Nations.”
The European Commission director general for trade, David O’Sullivan, said there was a need to bind the Asian countries – “whether waking Chinese dragons or growing Asian tigers” – more firmly into the global system.
“Through trade and investment we must offer them a sustainable stake in global economic success, and through effective institutions – the UN, the World Trade Organisation, the international financial institutions – we must be ready to embrace new ways of global governance that work to support peace and stability rather than uncertainty and conflict.
“This implies, as well, that we are willing to share more widely the quasi-monopoly of power and influence enjoyed by the West for much of the 20th century,” O’Sullivan said.
Economist and lawyer Linda Yueh of Pembroke College, Oxford, said China was now the fourth-largest economy and largest emerging market in the world, the third-largest exporter and importer and the leading world destination for inward foreign direct investment.
This economic progress had meant that an “estimated 400 million people were lifted out of abject poverty”.
However, she added: “Communist China today is a more unequal society than capitalist America.”
Jame Tang from the University of Hong Kong said China’s low-profile foreign policy had been based on Deng Xiaoping’s dictum: “Observe calmly; secure our position; cope with affairs calmly; hide our capacities and bide our time; be good at maintaining a low profile; and never claim leadership.”
Deng later added another phrase: “Make some contributions.” A Pentagon analysis of this approach said it combined “a short-term desire to downplay China’s ambitions and a long-term strategy to build up China’s power to maximise options for the future”.
(Irish Times)