SOURCE:http://www.tpmcafe.com/blog/americaabroad/2007/apr/24/china_and_sudan via savedarfur.org
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The economic, political, and military relationship between China and Sudan is extensive, but not without limits. China is Sudan’s number one consumer of oil and its largest foreign investor. China is an important supplier of arms and equipment to Sudan. China has also been Sudan’s main defender at the United Nations and elsewhere against efforts to apply sanctions against Khartoum for its role in the Darfur conflict. China has also shown that it will apply pressure on Sudan out of concern about damage to its own international standing, particularly as Beijing prepares to host the Summer Olympics in 2008.
China’s close relationship with the government of Sudan is part and parcel of Beijing’s overall policy toward Africa, where China has recently emerged as one of the world’s most influential players. China’s involvement in Sudan dates to the early period of its independence in the late 1950s. But China’s fast growing energy needs have since the mid-1990s significantly elevated the importance Beijing attaches to its relations with Khartoum. Africa today supplies more than a quarter of Beijing’s imported oil needs, and Beijing is, along with the United States and France, among Africa’s most important trading partners. The political ties between China and much of Africa have also intensified in recent years, reflecting common interests as developing nations as well as common interest, in certain instances, in opposing interference by the west on human rights and related issues.
China explicitly offers diplomatic support, investment, and assistance to Sudan on a principle of “noninterference.” That principle provides a counterweight to international pressure in support of human rights, good governance, and democracy. And, it is the principle on which Beijing bases its relations with Khartoum, despite the Sudanese government’s role in the mass killings and genocide in Darfur.
THE ECONOMIC RELATIONSHIP. The basis of China’s interest in Sudan, and Africa more broadly, is principally oil. China became a net importer of oil in 1993, and its consumption has grown exponentially since then. China surpassed Japan as the world’s second largest consumer of oil, after the United States, in 2004. Its oil imports continue to grow. By 2025, it is estimated that China will import as much oil as the United States currently does.
Africa holds nine percent of the world’s proven oil reserves, modest compared to reserves in Saudi Arabia and Russia, but important as an alternative source of reserves, nonetheless. Sudan, in particular, provides unique opportunities and advantages for China and others because many western governments and firms have withdrawn from the country for political or security reasons.
Sudan is a relatively minor but new and growing source of oil. Sudan now accounts for 0.4 percent of the world’s total oil supply, producing roughly 360,000 barrels per day. It has proven reserves of roughly 560 million barrels.
American and Canadian firms withdrew from Sudan in the mid-1990s due to a combination of security and human rights concerns. U.S. regulations, first imposed during the Clinton administration, bar investment in Sudan’s oil sector. China stepped in to fill the vacuum. In 1999, less than 1 percent of Beijing’s total oil imports were from Sudan. Today, China gets 7 percent of its oil imports from Sudan. Roughly two-thirds of Sudan’s oil exports go to China. Oil revenue is a principle source of funding for Sudan’s military operations. As much as 70 percent of Khartoum’s oil revenues goes to military spending, according to a former Sudanese finance minister.
Specifically, the state-owned China National Petroleum Corporation is the largest stakeholder in Sudan’s main oil producing consortium, the Greater Nile Petroleum Operating Company. Since 1996, China has held a forty percent stake in the Nile project, which produces the majority of Sudan’s oil. Malaysia’s Petronas Nasional Berhad and ONGC Videsh Ltd., a unit of India’s Oil & Natural Gas Corporation, are the other major investors.
Chinese firms have also participated in numerous other energy related enterprises, including construction of hydropower and electric power. On the strength of its energy investments, Sudan is China’s third largest trading partner in Africa, after Angola and South Africa. It accounts for 13 percent of China’s total trade with Africa. China, in turn, is Sudan's largest trading partner, purchasing roughly two-thirds of Sudan's exports and providing some 20 percent of its imports.
China also offers substantial aid and assistance to Sudan. In February 2007, for example, Chinese President Hu Jintao traveled to Sudan to meet with Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir, as part of a eight-nation trip through Africa. The advance billing for this trip suggested the possibility that the Chinese government would use the visit to press Khartoum strongly to improve the situation in Darfur. The main results, however, appeared to be a new package of economic and other aid. Hu announced new economic agreements, including to write off $80 million of Sudanese debt and to provide an interest-free loan of $13 million for infrastructure projects, including a new presidential palace. China also pledged $5.2 million in humanitarian assistance for Darfur.
THE POLITICAL RELATIONSHIP. Although oil and other natural resources are the main attraction for China, Beijing’s political relationship with Sudan is also important.
Beijing’s sensitivity about interference in its domestic affairs is well known, and on this point there is some overlapping interest with some African countries. Many African states rallied to Beijing’s defense after western nations criticized and imposed sanctions on China in the wake of the Tiananmen Square crackdown in 1989. More recently, China has been concerned about efforts to redefine the UN Charter’s principle of noninterference into the “domestic jurisdiction” of states. In September 2005, the General Assembly endorsed the “responsibility to protect,” a principle which establishes an international responsibility to take action to prevent or stop “genocide, war crimes, ethnic cleansing, and crimes against humanity.” While China and Sudan joined the General Assembly consensus to endorse this principle, China is concerned about the precedent it sets, and its potential use as a political weapon.
Some African states share China’s historical mistrust of western motivations in pursuing a human rights agenda, although the sub-Saharan democracies are strong backers of the responsibility to protect. Beijing sees Sudan and other African states as natural allies in the effort to push back against efforts to condition state sovereignty on the behavior of states. China’s continued support of Sudan also enhances its position in Africa as an alternative source of support for governments that have chafed under western pressure to reform.
China is the world’s second largest economy, but is also the world’s largest developing nation. For the purposes of its relations with Africa, China self-identifies as the leader of the developing world, and there is evidence that this resonates with some Africans, who view Beijing as the developing world’s only permanent representative on the UN Security Council.
China has also provided much needed economic assistance and peacekeeping support for Africa. At the November 2006 Beijing Summit of the Forum on China-Africa Cooperation, for example, China announced it would cancel the debt of 31 African countries. In recent years, China has abandoned its traditional aversion to participation in UN peacekeeping operations, becoming the largest contributor of troops among the permanent five members of the Security Council. As of today, China has 1,200 troops in three missions in Africa, the world’s thirteenth largest contributor overall. China supported the Comprehensive Peace Agreement in Sudan that ended the 20-year-old civil war between the North and South, and contributes 565 peacekeepers to UNMIS, the UN mission that monitors implementation of the agreement.
China pursues its comparative advantage by emphasizing its policy of investment and assistance in Africa with no strings attached, in contrast to the IMF and other international donors, which have conditioned assistance to African governments on economic reforms and transparency. In the extreme cases of Sudan and Zimbabwe, Beijing has been willing not only to deepen economic and diplomatic relations, but also to protect the regimes against international criticism and sanction.
To be continued...