China’s diplomatic victory in Sudan’s Darfur
By Jonathan HOLSLAG*
August 1, 2007 — Groping for stones to cross the river, that how China is testing and conceiving its role and position as a rapidly developing world power. Sudan’s scorching arid region of Darfur is one of the focal points where diverging interests merge into an awkward and often confusing learning process. Here, Beijing has to manoeuvre its pressing economic interests in a way that avoids collision with competitors and circumvents the pitfalls related to local instability and insecurity.
The People’s Republic’s commercial stakes in the North African country are widely surveyed. According the United Nations, China represents as much as 64 percent of Sudan’s trade volume. Between 1999 and 2006 Sudan’s oil exports to China increased from 266,126 tons to more than 6.5 million tons. In 2005 and 2006, China imported 47 percent of Sudan’s total oil production. China National Petroleum Corporation (CNPC) alone funnelled more than 4 billion USD into the Sudanese market. CNPC is by far the largest investor and has been active in Sudan since 1996. It is the main shareholder in Greater Nile Petroleum Company (GNPOC), Sudan’s National Oil Company. It acquired several oil exploitation concessions. It has a near monopoly over a vast oil block in Darfur (Block 6), participates directly in three other development zones (Blocks 2,7 and 15), and indirectly via GNOPC in two other areas (Block 1 and 4). CNPC plays a central role in the development of Sudan’s oil infrastructure. In 1998, CNPC’s construction branch, China Petroleum Engineering and Construction Corporation (CPECC), participated in the building of the 1,500 km pipeline from Blocks 1 and 2 in the south to the Red Sea. In 2004, the Sudanese government awarded CNPC a contract to develop a 740 km oil pipeline from the Fula oilfields in Western Kordofan to the main oil refinery in Khartoum. Besides oil excavation, Chinese companies are present in several other branches. The Petroleum and Natural Gas Exploration and Development Corporation implement-ted a polypropylene exploitation project in Khartoum. The Chinese also hold a 50 percent share in the Khartoum Chemical Industry Company and is full owner of the Sudanese Petrochemical Trade Project. Backed by a 149 million USD loan of China’s Central Bank, Harbin Power Company erected and manages the Qarre I hydropower station, about 50 km north of Khartoum. Together with Qarre II it will produce 330 megawatts. With an 85 percent shareholding, the Chin-ese also participate in the 300 megawatt Kajbar Dam. Other companies are involved in the construction of bridges, railways and other public infrastructure.
China’s economic ambitions have been spoiled by Sudan’s gloomy security climate. More than once Chinese ventures were directly threatened. Several oil wells are located in areas prone to violent skirmishes. In 2004, rebels abducted Chinese workers that were dispatched in the southern part of the country. China’s ambitions also have been challenged indirectly. Mindful of Deng Xiaoping’s adage, safeguarding world peace to ensure domestic development, Beijing spends increasing efforts to brand itself as a responsible actor at the international scene. ‘The multi-field, multi-level and multi-channel co-operation within the international community has become the realistic choice,’ Foreign Minster Li Zhaoxing wrote in 2005, ‘the vigorous pursuit of peace, development and co-operation by the people of all countries has formed a tide of history […] China’s diplomacy has made bold headway, serving domestic development and contributing to world peace and common development.’ Mayhem in Darfur threw doubt on these premises. Not only became China criticized for supporting Khartoum committing war crimes. Darfur also placed Beijing for a dilemma between two diverging aspects of its new diplomatic standards. On the one side is the traditional emphasis on sovereignty and non-interference, principles that proved to be lucrative to carve out economic deals in Sudan and elsewhere in Africa. ‘Business is business’, summarized Chinese Deputy Foreign Minister Zhou Wenzhong in 2005, ‘we try to separate politics from business […] he internal situation in the Sudan is an internal affair’. On the other side we find constructive engagement as described by Minister Li, necessary to maintain good relations with other world powers and to play a role in multilateral organisations. In this regard, China’s policy on Darfur offers a relevant case to study how Beijing reconciles chasing short term gains with the need for long term stability in Sudan and expectations of other actors.
Regarding humanitarian tragedies like in Darfur, responsibility often has been specified to the responsibility to protect. This accountability implies that one has the right and plight to put the primacy of sovereignty aside when a state fails to protect its own citizens. Extensive research focussed on China’s evolving stance on intervening in conflict-ridden countries, especially in the context of the United Nations (UN) operations. These studies reveal that China’s position on UN Peacekeeping Operations changed from principled opposition and non-participation in the 1970s, over support and non-participation in the 1980s, to support and participation in the 1990s. ‘Although Beijing promoted a relatively static interpretation of sovereignty, and in principle opposed the idea of intervention,’ Allen Carlson summarizes, ‘Chinese leaders also committed to a series of multilateral endeavours that gradually modified China’s stance on intervention and, by extension, sovereignty’s role in international politics.’ Explanations for this shift are ubiquitous. China increasingly recognized the utility of the UN Security Council as a vehicle to protect and to project national interests. Since the 1970s, China also started to see constructive cooperation in the framework of the UN as a necessary modus of coexistence with the West and the United States in particular. Several scholars underline the fact that economic and security interdependence as well as China’s maturing status as a regional and world power, eroded the significance of sovereignty in international affairs. Thirty years of membership of the Security Council also lead to a significant process of socialization and learning in which China redefined its standards and means.
Though, while China started to engage in several peacekeeping operations by endorsing them with its vote in the Council and by actively supporting them on the spot; this engagement was soon caught up by new realities. The period after the Cold War brought an increasing number of conflicts were the traditional peacekeeping recipe was no longer effective. Dispatching troops in between rivalling factions, often in order to safeguard the sovereignty of the state, became meaningless in failing states or situations were national governments themselves agitated unrest, violence and crimes against humanity. The consequent shift from peacekeeping to peace enforcement required the People’s Republic’s to revise its position again. The answer was a pragmatic attempt to avoid collision between the call for engagement and China’s prerequisite of state consent. In the Balkans, Beijing circumvented a confrontation with the United States and the European Union by expressing its opposition to an armed intervention in Kosovo, but abstaining during the voting process in the Security Council. China invoked the ‘exceptionality of the situation’ to dispatch blue helmets in Somalia without formal consent. Terrorism was the justification for supporting intervention in Afghanistan. Hence, China responded to peace enforcement by staying aloof and leaving the implementation and command to other actors. It is exactly this beating about the bush that is challenged by the recent crisis in Darfur. Given the central position of China in Sudan and its close links with the local government, Beijing was forced into the open. Therefore, it is utmost useful to go more into detail on how it tried to answer this challenge.
CHINA’S EVOLVING POSTURE ON PEACE ENFORCEMENT IN DARFUR
China never opposed the deployment of UN troops to Darfur, but it tenaciously refused a peace enforcement operation, implying putting boots on the ground without necessarily obtaining the consent of the national government. The People’s Republic even had several motivations to send in blue helmets. First and foremost, the awareness grew that escalating violence would put its economic stakes in Sudan at risk. Several Chinese experts pointed at a potential spill-over of unrest from Darfur to the south of Sudan where peace was only half-heartedly restored. Further deterioration could also trigger strong unilateral reactions from Western states that might menace China’s political friends and make China loosing its pivotal position. Second, the African Union’s request to replace its exhausted troops with a full-fledged UN peacekeeping mission, could damage Beijing’s relationship with other African states in case of obstruction. A third factor was the restoration of diplomatic ties with Chad in August 2006 and the inking of several oil deals with this country at the beginning of 2007. As a neighbouring state, Chad had been per-manently pressing for action to stop refugees and rebels from Darfur crossing its border. With a Chinese belt of energy interests stretching from Libya to Ethiopia, all around Western Sudan, regional stability became of vital importance to China’s energy security. ‘The appropriate solution to Darfur issue not only concerns security and humanitarian situation in that region,’ China’s UN Ambassador contended, ‘but also bears on the peace process between the North and the South of Sudan, the neighbouring country Chad, and the security and stability of the Central Africa and the sub-region as a whole.’
Though, at the same time Beijing had good reasons to abide to the assent of the Sudanese government. Apart from the obvious interest in maintaining good relations with Khartoum to protect its local oil empire, China also saw a political solution as the only possible one. From a tactical perspective the insistence on political consent enabled Beijing to buy time and to make the UN mission more acceptable to the Sudanese regime. Moreover, a military intervention without political approval could result in a complete quandary and uncontrollable chaos. In this regard, China’s position was in line with the approaches of other permanent members of the Security Council. For example, US Ambassador Jackie Sanders stated in veiled words that ‘practically speaking it’s going to be useful to have the government on board’. Hence, in order to assess China’s response to the appeal for sending troops to Sudan, one should focus on the pragmatic veering between these two points of departure. Instead of analyzing if China supported the deployment of UN troops; it should be analyzed how Beijing helped persuading Khartoum to allow them.
Passing the message
In April 2004, after the signing of the Humanitarian Ceasefire Agreement by the government of Sudan and two rebel movements from the Darfur region, the African Union approved to send a monitoring mission to Darfur (AMIS). Though, a lack of financial means, a limited mandate, and insufficient military capacity undermined the mission’s efficacy and made it a lame duck without any ability to tackle continuous crimes against humanity. In January 2006, the Union’s Peace and Security Council officially demanded to replace AMIS with UN soldiers, a request that was supported by Washington, the European Union and the People’s Republic. China’s ambassador to the UN elucidated that ‘China is in favour of replacing AMIS with UN operation. This is a good idea and realistic option, and it will help improve the situation on the ground and serve the interests of all parties. We therefore support, with the consent of the Government of National Unity, to deploy UN troops in Darfur as soon as feasible.’ This conditional support already had been the starting point for China’s approval of the deployment of the United Nations’ Mission in Southern Sudan (UNMIS) after Khartoum gave green light in March 2005. Yet, at the same time China refused that the resolution (res.1590) provided in cooperation between UNMIS and AMIS that was already present in Darfur.
In the same way, Beijing refused to let resolution 1706 pass without inserting the requirement of Khartoum’s consent. Nevertheless, this resolution, tabled in September 2006, was an important step forward to the preparation of troop deployment in Darfur. In the drafting process China accepted that the peacekeeping operation acted under a Chapter VII mandate. It assented to underline the urgency taking over the work of AMIS, the deadline was set at the end of 2006, and to expand the new mission’s tasks: including monitoring and verifying the implementation peace agreements, investigating violations, disarming rivalling factions and preventing attacks and threats against civilians. These provisions were considered as an adequate blue print for an operation to have tangible impact on the security situation. China also went along with the clause that UNMIS should play a role in the preparations for and conduct of the referendum in 2010 that will have to determine whether Darfur should be an autonomous region. This was a remarkable achieve-ment given China’s traditional resistance to secession.
Having a roadmap without a drivers licence, that was the impression arising from the quandary between the drafted plan and the lack of permission to go ahead. However, as from 2006, China gradually intensified its efforts to overcome this predicament, and tried to persuade the Sudanese government to accept the dispatching of blue helmets in Darfur. This engagement was characterized by a subtle interplay between a permanent effort to solidify its privileged partnership on the one hand and loudening appeals for allowing the peacekeeping mission on the other. All through the negotiation process, Beijing continued nourishing its relations with Sudan. Chinese compliments on its ties with the North-African country varied from ‘friendly relations’ over ‘continuously and smoothly developing friendly bilateral cooperation’ to ‘a model of South-South cooperation’. Beijing reasons for continuing this lauding discourse were diverse. Again, economic interests were decisive, but apart from that, China considered that disturbing friendly ties would also diminish chances for steady progress towards the stabilisation of Darfur. Moreover, it was well aware that a stagnating partnership could instigate Khartoum to hedge more towards other countries that were interested in doing business. India in particular appeared to be determined to get a foot on the ground. In December 2005 and January 2006 New Delhi approved various aid packages to the Sudanese government. From his side, president al-Bashir rewarded the South-Asian state with more oil concessions and praised the warm relationship. At the start of 2006, Malaysia and Russia too boosted their commercial diplomacy significantly.
In order to avoid being played off against these other pretenders, China responded by concluding new economic agreements. In May 2006, the Sudanese Minister for Industry Ali Ahmed Osman received a delegation of Chinese companies to discuss investments in Sudan’s secondary sector. Military ties were strengthened as well. The Chinese Chief Staff called on Sudan in late December 2005, and reportedly tried to sell fighter jets. In April 2006, China’s Central Military Commission received the Sudanese Defence Minister. This charm offensive partially stemmed from the political aspiration to maintain influence; but at the same time it made clear that China did not make up its mind how this venture should be coordinated. Especially the period between the African Union’s request for replacing its troops in Darfur in January 2006 and July, oil companies, foreign affairs officials and military officers approached Sudan in a jumbled array. The former gave the impression of a business as usual approach. The military followed its own course without communicating with the Ministry of Foreign Affairs on the message it should promulgate. Hence, this stage clearly reflected that Beijing was struggling to arrive at a well-coordinated line of communication. At the start of China’s engagement to convince Khartoum, all Chinese actors involved in Sudan did their bit to strengthen their position, but not always with the same endeavours in mind, and certainly not in the synchronized manner one could expect from a developmental state like the People’s Republic.
Departing from this setting, China’s initial attempt to persuade the Sudanese government paving the way for blue helmets in Darfur kept a low profile. Between January and September 2006 China’s appeal rather took the form of joining and echoing the pledges of other actors, than making proposals by itself. For instance, at an African Union Summit in January, Vice Foreign Minister Lu Guozeng supported the Union’s urgency on having its monitoring mission replaced, but staid at the margin of the talks. At an Arab League Summit in Khartoum in March, the Envoy to the Middle East applauded the League’s promise to provide funding for AMIS, but remained silent on the replacement of the troops. In April, UN Ambassador Wang Bangguo, in the function of Chairman of the Security Council, brought over the regrets for Sudan’s obstruction to emergency relief operations in Darfur, but refrained from further comments in his function as national representative. China approved the resolutions 1663 and 1679 that both ordered the commencing of the ‘necessary preparatory planning for transition of AMIS to a United Nations operation’ and deploying a ‘joint African Union and United Nations technical assessment mission’ within one week of the adoption of resolution 1679. A week before the voting of this decision, Foreign Minister Li Zhaoxing underlined that ‘Strengthening the African Union Mission in Sudan (AMIS) is the consensus of all Security Council members and the international community as a whole, and the top priority at present is to turn that consensus into reality.’ However, no public comments were made on the role of UNMIS in replacing AMIS. Encouraged by the Darfur Peace Agreement on 5 May, China assumed that Khartoum should be complimented instead of teaching a lesson. Official meetings, like these of Ambassador Wang with Nafie Ali Nafie and of Tang with Sudanese Foreign Minister Lam Akol, sought to endorse Sudan’s course and to determine its preparedness to accept UNMIS troops in Darfur, rather than pushing it forward. Thus, at this stage Beijing choose to act as a messenger man, instead of pursuing straight-forward talks.
Active persuasion
However, in August, a series of serious stumbling blocks in the peace process took China aback. Rekindling fighting hampered the supply of humanitarian aid. On 19 August, Khartoum bluntly rejected any replacing of African Union soldiers with troops of the United Nations. Moreover, the Sudanese government declined an invitation to attend a special meeting of the Security Council and the related gesture to trim down the size of the planned UN operation in Darfur. Consequently, the United States and several European and African countries sought to increase pressure. Washington threatened with new sanctions. As the deadline of resolution 1706 to fly in blue helmets came near, key Chinese political figures publicly expressed their concern, with the aim of both warding off criticism about China’s posture and showing the Sudanese regime that it went too far. For instance, in September, Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao stated that he was ‘very much concerned about the stability in Darfur’ and reiterated his support ‘to send in peacekeepers’. Beijing also summoned Sudanese Assistant President Nafie Ali Nafie to explain the deterioration. Chinese Vice-President Zeng Qinghong was reported to clarify that the UN mission in Darfur would not undermine the position of the Sudanese government and that it was recommended to ‘start constructive negotiations’ on the possible outlook of this operation. On 15 September Ambassador Wang Guangya confirmed that his government had been ‘pressing’ Sudan both in Beijing and Khartoum: ‘We sent a message to them that we feel the UN taking over is a good idea, but it is up to them to agree to that. We are not imposing on them. We need to have them consider it and agree to it.’ When Sudan finally joined the meeting table at the High Level Consultation on the Situation in Darfur in the African Union’s headquarters in Addis Ababa on 16 November, Wang was reported to have made important interventions to obtain the acceptation of the Annan Plan, a three-phase road map for the deployment of a hybrid African Union/UN peace-keeping force of 22,000 troops. The senior diplomat also registered displeasure with Khartoum’s stubborn stance and made clear to Sudan’s Foreign Minister Lam Akol, that there was no hidden agenda in the effort to introduce a stronger peacekeeping force. A few days prior to this meeting, several high-ranking Chinese officials had already been discussing the different options when President Omar al-Bashir arrived in Beijing for the Forum on the China-Africa Cooperation (FOCAC) Summit. His Chinese counterpart Hu Jintao publicly made an appeal that ‘the Sudanese government can find an appropriate settlement, maintain stability, and constantly improves the humanitarian conditions in the region’. This line was maintained during Hu’s visit to Sudan in early February 2007. Apart from the issuing of four principles to resolve the Darfur bloodshed, and publicly stating that ‘the government should work more earnestly’ to get peace in its conflict-ridden border region; Hu Jintao and accompanying officials were reported to have send a ‘strong message’ that the Annan-plan had to be respected. Hence, China’s diplomacy shifted gradually from passing the message to active persuasion.
Seeking common ground and practical results
Yet, negotiations suffered a new setback at the beginning of March, when the Sudanese President sent a letter to Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon rejecting several aspects of the UN’s hybrid force plan. The same week, China’s UN ambassador demanded the Sudanese government for explanations and emphasized that his country was ‘committed’ to the implementation of the agreements that were reached in Addis Ababa. The envoy maintained that sanctions were not an option but underlined that Khartoum’s response was not ‘what we expect at the council’. At the end of that month, Sudanese Presidential Assistant Nafie Ali Nafie was received in Beijing and requested for more ‘flexibility’. This message was repeated in April when Chinese Assistant Foreign Minister and Special Envoy Zhai Jun travelled to the African country. ‘Our position toward Darfur is clear,’ Zhai stressed after a meeting with President Omar al-Bashir, ‘we have exercised all possible efforts, political, economic and others and advised our Sudanese brothers to accept Annan’s plan.’
Behind the screens, diplomats from the Chinese embassy in Sudan and representatives from the Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Zhai Jun among others, tried to funnel these public calls into concrete discussions concerning the possible modus operandi of the hybrid peace force. Because the Sudanese government was mainly anxious about Western interference, Chinese and African officials actively tried to unlock the stalemate by working out proposals in which other parts of the world would deliver the principal part of the men. Beijing’s agreement with Khartoum to deploy a vanguard of 275 ‘multifunction’ engineering soldiers to Darfur in early May, has to be considered from this perspective, as well as an attempt to deflect Western criticism. With a loudening voice, passionate campaigns in Europe and the United States called for a boycott of China’s ‘genocide Olympics’, and on top of that London and Washington indicated that they were considering additional restrictive measures for the Sudanese government. Growing public scepticism of China’s involvement in Sudan also played a role in the widely covered appointment of a Special Envoy to Darfur on 10 May, although his mandate differed merely from the role of Assistant Minister Zhai. Though, the personal involvement of Liu demonstrated very clearly that the People’s Republic developed into a ‘mediating interface’. It became a point of contact ‘that actively seeks to build consensus between all the parties involved, but instead of simply facilitating negotiations, China also made its own ideas very clear to the Sudanese government’. Between his appointment and the end June, the Special Envoy travelled two times to Sudan and had separate meetings with representatives from the Africa Union and the Arab League to inter alia discuss their potential involvement in the hybrid peacekeeping mission. Simultaneously, China started to discuss the options through its formal dialogues with the United States and the European Union. On 21 June, Deputy Secretary of State John Negroponte and China’s Vice Foreign Minister Dai Bingguo, accompanied with teams diplomats, had a two-day closed-door senior dialogue in Washington, during which ‘straightforward and practically oriented’ discussions related to Darfur took place. Two days later, Vice Foreign Minister Zhang Yesui attended an international conference on Darfur held on 25 June in Paris. Several countries confirmed that Liu Guijin contributed significantly to find ‘pragmatic and feasible’ solutions for sending in blue helmets.
CHINA’S CONTINUING OPPOSITION TO SANCTIONS
In February 2005, the United States tabled a draft resolution that included measures to impose sanctions on individuals blocking the peace process. During the drafting process, China explicitly demanded that the persons subjected to these measures would be selected informally by a closed door committee of the Security Council, a procedure that is not unusual but allows members to exclude targeted persons without having to justify this exclusion publicly. China abstained when the final resolution (1591) was adopted on 29 March 2005 and contended that ‘continuing to exert pressure without considering the complexity of the specific circumstances of Darfur would not help the drive for a political solution.’ In December 2005, the expert panel, appointed to advise the committee, submitted a first report that was highly critical on the role of the Sudanese government. The public part emphasized Khartoum’s continuing support to armed Janjaweed groups and lambasted the offensive deployment of army helicopters to the western province. According to Ambassador Wang this document failed to offer ‘clear details and convincing evidence’. The report also included a confidential list of 17 names of individuals proposed for sanctions, among which Sudanese Defense Minister Major General Abdel Rahim Mohammed Hussein, National Security Director Salah Abdalla, various Sudanese military and police commanders, two Janjaweed militia leaders and five rebel commanders. Though, when it came to a resolution in April 2006 (1672), China and Russia succeeded to trim this list down to only four persons. These included one Sudanese government official, one pro-government militia member, and two rebel leaders, the first to be slated for sanctions authorized by the Security Council already in 2005. But even then China abstained for the reason that no sufficient information and ‘clarifications on the inclusion of individuals on the sanctions list’ were provided. Simultaneously, China and Russia joined forces to amend a draft resolution sponsored by the US and the UK that would lead to sanctions against any individual or group that violates or attempts to block the implementation of the Darfur Peace Agreement. In the final resolution (1679), passed on 16 May 2006, it was obtained to soften ‘expressing intention’ to ‘consider taking strong and effective measures’. Likewise, China voiced its opposition to the referral of Darfur to the International Criminal Court, a proposal sponsored by the UK. Initially, Beijing assumed the United States would bring this resolution to a halt, given Washington’s opposition towards the ICC. However, the pressure of the American public opinion became so strong that the Bush administration gave in and decided to abstain. An early counter-proposal of the Chinese delegation to charge Sudanese courts with the investigation drew a blank, but still it was confident enough that the resolution could be passed without threatening government officials in Khartoum. After all, the scope of the ICC would entirely depend on the cooperation of the Sudanese government.
Apart from sanctions on individuals, China warded off several other measures. Whereas it had no problem with imposing an arms ban on the different militias operating in Darfur, there could be no question of an embargo against the Sudanese government. In the drafting process of resolution 1556 for instance, the People’s Republic assented the need to disarm the Janjaweed factions, but opposed restrictions that would affect the regular armed forces as these were ‘not helpful and could further complicate the situation.’ The Chinese delegation took the same posture in regard to the proposal for the inclusion of a comprehensive arms ban in resolution 1591. In April 2007, Beijing refused to approve a new report of the Expert Panel to the Sanctions Committee. This document described how Khartoum violated the interdiction to transfer arms to Darfur and recommended a tightening of the arms embargo imposed by the Security Council and further restrictions on activities involving illicit weapons, regardless of who is responsible. Economic curbs as well bumped into Chinese resistance. In September 2004, China watered down the potential impact of resolution 1564. This ruling found Sudan in breach with the obligations that were stressed out in resolution 1556 and vowed to additional measures such as ‘actions to affect Sudan’s petroleum sector and the Government of Sudan or individual members of the Government of Sudan, in order to take effective action to obtain such full compliance or full cooperation’. The Chinese delegation however, required that the Security Council ‘should consider’ these sanctions instead of automatically imposing them. China abstained in the voting round, and a few days later Chinese officials explained that they would block the economic measures in any case, making the resolution loosing al its credibility.
IS CHINA OILING THE PACIFICATION OF DARFUR?
Darfur exigently tested China’s diplomatic agility. It compelled Beijing to veer between its traditional norms and economic interests on the one side, and on the other side the international pressure and the need for long term stability. Contrarily to other incidents, the violence in Darfur did not allow the People’s Republic to skirt around the problem and staying aloof. Though, whereas China could not escape engagement, it succeeded to avoid tough choices between external expectations and its proper standards and interests. Since the atrocities in the Sudanese region were taken up by Security Council, China vociferously indicated that it would not renounce its perquisite of consent and its resistance against sanctions that could damage the national government’s position. Instead, for the first time in its 35 years permanent membership of the UN emergency room, China actively sought to persuade a sovereign government to assent the deployment of blue helmets on its national soil. The handling of this endeavour initially took the form of echoing statements and playing the messenger man of other Security Council Members and the African Union. By mid 2006, China started to take a clear position and actively lobbied the Sudanese government to allow a foreign intervention in Darfur. In 2007, China went a step further as it sought to negotiate the terms of the deployment and assisted the conception of a concrete and workable road map to achieve tangible progress.
China addressed Khartoum without carrying sticks. It never threatened with economic repercussions in case of non-compliance. The fact that Sudan was removed from the Ministry of Commerce’s (MOFCOM) list of favoured destinations for Chinese investments in March 2007, had rather to do with the revision of commercial priorities as with the attempt to exert pressure on Khartoum. During its negotiations, Beijing departed from the interests of the local political elite and tried to meet its concerns, not by imposing measures, but by clarifying the different options and creating trust to find a feasible consensus. It behaved as a primus inter pares instead of an omnipotent superpower, attempting to foster the notion of an ‘equal dialogue’, but with China showing a strong mandate to speak on behalf of trustworthy ‘friends’ like the Arab League and the African Union. ‘We have been playing a role of bridge,’ Ambassador Liu Guijin asserted, ‘we have been trying to give advice and to persuade Sudan to be more flexible to accept the UN plan.’ These diplomatic efforts undoubtedly formed a learning school. This was not only noticeable in the three stages of engagement, but also in the extent to which Beijing succeeded to fine tune the different domestic players. Whereas in 2005, different officials voiced different lines of thought; the official discourse showed much more coherence the year after. Statements like ‘business is business’ became unthinkable. China also understood the necessity to communicate with news media. The initial reluctance to comment on Darfur made place for frequent press conferences and various articles in state-controlled news papers. Envoy Liu gave interviews to all major broadcasting companies. In the same way, corporate interests were more closely tied to the political attempt to influence the Sudanese government. Hu Jintao’s straightforward talk in Khartoum was embedded in an economic charm offensive that included several important investments. Thus, China has been pursuing a two-track approach, combining soft power and economic support to ensure the government’s survival on the one hand and clear pragmatic talks on the other.
For China, this strategy already yielded fruits. Despite continuing public campaigning, it deflected political criticism. High-ranking African, American and European officials praised China for its ‘constructive policy’. Instead of isolation, China succeeded to exploit its role to gain moral credibility among African countries and strengthened its position in multilateral forums like the United Nations, the Arab League and the African Union. Several measures were promised to prevent violence crossing the borders with business partner Chad. Moreover, between 2005 and 2006, China even consolidated its economic stronghold on Sudan. China’s performance also prevented that Western countries keen on intervention ended up in a painful predicament between their promise to undertake action and the fact that such a military intervention would be extremely risky and counterproductive without the cooperation of the national government. Moreover, a mission that could have to fight its way into Darfur would have been unachievable given the military commitments to other hot spots like Iraq and Afghanistan. From the perspective of the Sudanese government, China’s diplomacy allowed it to save its face and to secure its central position in the peace process. Undoubtedly, Beijing also nourished the economic survivability of the regime. The gesture of President Hu Jintao to grant millions of dollars of aid and to forgive a part of Sudan’s due debts unlikely would have been equalled by another country if China felt out of grace. Then finally, did China contribute to the pacification of Darfur? Was China’s policy effective in meeting the concerns that lay at the basis of the call for an intervention? One could argue that China’s patient approach was permitting the continuation of bloodshed. Indeed, several deadlines passed by without hammering out a final approval, but still, the lost of time was mainly due to an ineffective early warning process, and it is highly unlikely that soldiers would have been earlier deployed if the Sudanese government refused bargaining with Western interlocutors. However, there are two main shortcomings in China’s diplomacy. The first is that its pure state-centric approach fails to consider other important actors in the region of Darfur. A peace mission will need to deal as much with private militias and rebel movements as with regular forces, and neglecting this will constrain its impact. A second problem is the fact that China did not consider a B-plan in case of continuing resistance of the Sudanese government. Moreover, continuing arms supplies increased the costs of an armed intervention without consent even further. All in all, China’s skilful fusing of realpolitik and constructive behaviour, remains tailored to benefit China’s peaceful development in the first place instead of developing peace in Sudan. Nevertheless, it appears that the country rounded another cape en route to a true world power status.
(* The author is a Research Fellow at Brussels Institute for Contemporary China Studies (BICCS), he is also Coordinator Brussels China Forum and
Expert EU-China Academic Network (ECAN). He can be reached at [email protected]. Webpage : http://www.vub.ac.be/biccs/14_staff_Jonathan.htm )