China’s guns and Kharoum’s genocide

Editorial, The Wall Street Journal

Feb 21, 2007 — President Hu Jintao is just back from an eight-country tour of Africa, where he promised that China would “certainly not do anything harmful to the interests of Africa and its people.” That must come as news to the people of Darfur.

China is a major supplier of arms to Sudan, whose government and the militias it supports are responsible for the continuing genocide in Darfur, where 200,000 people have died and 2.5 million have been displaced. International human rights organizations including Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch and the Save Darfur Coalition note that Khartoum sponsors the janjaweed — the militia largely responsible for the genocide in Darfur — and supplies them with Chinese-made weapons.

According to a report last year by Amnesty International, arms deliveries since the 1990s have included ammunition, tanks, helicopters and fighter aircraft. “The Sudanese government and militias it has supported have used such types of weapons to commit massive violations of international human rights and humanitarian law in armed conflicts in southern Sudan and Darfur,” the report says.

In 2005, China shipped 200 military vehicles to Sudan. That was after a United Nations-approved embargo was imposed on Darfur. Similar vehicles have been involved in the abduction and death of civilians in the Darfur region, the Amnesty International report says.

Jiang Yu, spokeswoman for the Foreign Ministry, says, “We strictly abide by the resolutions of the U.N. not to export to countries and regions in war.” Ms. Jiang could be technically correct. Because the U.N. arms embargo pertains to the militias in Darfur, it’s unclear if China is violating it by supplying weapons directly to the Sudanese government. But even if the arms sales accord with the letter of the U.N. resolution, they clearly violate its spirit.

Amnesty International estimates that China’s arms exports add up to as much as $1 billion a year world-wide. And its export-licensing standards are less than transparent. It is the only major arms exporter that has refused to sign multilateral agreements that include criteria to prevent arms exports likely to be used for serious human rights violations. By those standards, China can export as many weapons as it likes to Sudan’s despots.

At a meeting earlier this month with Omar Hassan al-Bashir, Mr. Hu encouraged the Sudanese president to find a peaceful resolution to the conflict in Darfur and assured him that U.N. peacekeepers — whose deployment Mr. Bashir has so far fiercely resisted — could play a constructive role in improving the situation. Andrew Natsios, the U.S. special envoy to Sudan, who traveled to Beijing in advance of Mr. Hu’s trip, was quick to give Beijing a pat on the back, saying, “Our policies and the Chinese policies are closer than I realize.” He added that China will “play an increasingly important role in helping us to resolve this.”

China has considerable influence in Sudan, which is the largest recipient of Chinese investment in Africa. According to the World Bank, in 2004 Beijing invested $150 million there, nearly three times its investment in Nigeria, the second-largest recipient of Chinese money.

During Mr. Hu’s 12-day tour of Africa, he promised that China would foster peace and cooperation. He could start by cutting off the rifles and ammunition to Khartoum’s rulers.