China’s economic ties to Sudan complicate push for UN sanctions
By Sudarsan Raghavan
KHARTOUM, Sudan, Sep 15, 2004 (Knight Ridder Newspapers) — The U.S. push for United Nations sanctions against Sudan’s government for failing to halt Arab-militia atrocities in Darfur is being thwarted in part by China’s strong economic interest in this African country.
When the United States cut off most trade with Sudan in 1997 for Khartoum’s sponsorship of global terrorism, which included hosting Osama bin Laden, China stepped in to fill the void, nurturing Sudan’s oil industry by developing oil fields and building refineries and pipelines.
Today, China, with veto power in the U.N. Security Council, is Sudan’s largest trading partner, according to CIA statistics. Sudan, which pumps 300,000 barrels of oil per day, is China’s fourth biggest source of imported oil.
China’s interests have emboldened the Sudanese government, whose officials predict that the United States will fail in any effort to have the Security Council approve a resolution. The current American proposal calls for increasing the number of African Union peacekeeping troops in Darfur and giving them a mandate to protect civilians, in addition to imposing an oil embargo.
“We don’t think the United States will make it in the Security Council,” Angelo Beda, the deputy speaker of Sudan’s Parliament, said last week in Nairobi, Kenya. “We have our supporters. We are not there for nothing.”
That’s placing more pressure on the Bush administration in the wake of last week’s declaration by Secretary of State Colin Powell that genocide is unfolding in Darfur. “Getting the Security Council to act is going to be a challenge,” Powell told the Senate Foreign Relations Committee last week.
China and Pakistan, he added, have “interests” in Sudan that aren’t “coincident with the interests we are trying to pursue at the moment.”
China’s influence is evident seemingly everywhere here: In the Friendship Conference Hall. In the Friendship Hospital. In the Friendship Spinning and Weaving Factory. In the highways and bridges that crisscross the Nile.
Chinese money built them, and today few people think Beijing is willing to risk the alliance they represent over accusations that 1.2 million black Africans have been forced from their homes by government-backed Arab militias known as the Janjaweed.
At least 50,000 people have died in the violence, and the World Health Organization said Monday that 10,000 people a month were dying from violence and disease.
“There are simply no human rights concerns _ even massive genocidal destruction _ that will lead the Chinese regime to accept an embargo or any other threat to its production and development activities in Sudan,” said Eric Reeves, a Sudan expert at Smith College in Massachusetts who’s urged stockholders to divest their holdings in companies doing business in Sudan.
Yan Jiarong, a press officer at China’s U.N. mission, said her country remained deeply concerned about the humanitarian situation in Darfur. But Sudan, she said, is making progress and conditions are improving.
“The Security Council should encourage Sudan to do more, not make the situation more complicated through mere pressure,” Jiarong said in a telephone interview. “We should make constructive pressure instead of punishments.”
The resistance to sanctions is another example of how human rights are colliding with global economic interests as developed nations increasingly look toward authoritarian regimes for new reservoirs of energy, trade and industry.
In Sudan, French and other European firms have projects in the electrical, telecommunications and oil sectors. Russia, which also has veto power in the Security Council, has arms and oil deals with Sudan. Pakistan, which has a vote on the Security Council though not a veto, is a major importer of Sudanese oil and a fellow Muslim nation.
Pakistan and Russia have refused to slap sanctions on Khartoum. The European Union initially balked, but is now agreeable to such measures.
It’s China, however, that has the most to lose _ and is leading the charge against sanctions. A decade ago, China exported oil. Now it’s the world’s second largest importer, topped only by the United States.
It’s scouring the world _ from Iraq to Saudi Arabia to West Africa _ for more sources of oil and gas to fuel its economy. This quest is placing it in conflict with U.S. policies in the Middle East, and Sudan is the latest example.
“China is pursuing a very successful, pragmatic policy,” said Sadiq al Mahdi, a former prime minister of Sudan. “The Europeans, the Americans are mindful of Sudan’s human rights situation. The Chinese look the other way.”
“They don’t have the same kind of holier-than-thou attitude as the West,” he added. “They are, especially for nondemocratic governments, very welcome partners.”
In the face of strong opposition from China and Pakistan, the United States is planning to present a revised, most likely watered-down, draft of its resolution to the Security Council.
Most analysts expect China, at the very least, to abstain from voting, as it has in the past. That would make any sanctions on Sudan less forceful.
Meanwhile, Sudan’s oil contracts keep flowing to its powerful friend. In June, the China National Petroleum Corp. won a bid to build a $215 million oil terminal. Two weeks later, Sinopec Group, China’s second largest oil producer, won a $100 million contract to build a pipeline.