Hu's trip to Sudan tests China-Africa ties

Chinese President Hu Jintao's arrival in Sudan Friday could well mark a turning point in China's growing relationship with Africa.

If Mr. Hu announces more investment and development projects, as promised at Beijing's summit of 43 African heads of state this past November, then China will cement its position as the continent's new business partner of choice. If he buckles to pressure from Western governments, and makes future aid dependent on Sudan's actions to halt the brutal civil war in Darfur, then African leaders will see that even China's aid comes with strings attached.

Whatever happens, Hu's visit to Sudan will be historic.

"It is a true partnership, and the Chinese are probably not getting the biggest share of it," says Abdul Rahim Ali Mohammad Ibrahim, a pro-Sudanese government analyst and director of the Institute of Arabic Language Study in Khartoum. "The Chinese are using it as a showpiece. It would be easy for China to tell other African countries, 'Come see what we've done in Sudan.' "

With the global race for African resources well under way, Mr. Hu's eight-nation Africa tour caps a portentous week, coming on the heels of the African Union summit in Ethiopia, and new UN Secretary-General Ban Ki Moon's five-day Africa visit.

Chinese investment has become the new driving force for economic development in Africa – with African-Chinese trade reaching $40 billion and Chinese aid expected to reach $10 billion in 2009 – and many African countries see China as their ticket to prosperity. Chinese aid is especially attractive, because it comes without all the troublesome conditions that Western donors tend to place on clean governance and human rights.

Nowhere is this more true than in Sudan. As a recipient of Chinese aid since 1959, and a close trading partner since Chinese investment jumpstarted Sudan's dormant oil industry in the late 1990s, Sudan has always felt that its friendship with China extended beyond economics.

Now with the UN pushing Sudan to halt the humanitarian crisis in its Darfur region – a three-year civil conflict that has claimed the lives of more than 200,000 civilians and displaced 2.5 million more – and to accept UN peacekeepers, Sudan looks to China for high-level diplomatic support.

It's an expectation that Sudanese observers say may be increasingly hard to match.

"I don't think Sudan will benefit from the visit of the Chinese president," says Khalid Tijani El-Nour, a political commentator and editor in chief of the Sudanese business weekly Elaff. "China has huge economic relations with the United States ... so China is not supporting Sudan 100 percent. China has never promised to use its veto [to block UN action against Sudan over Darfur]. They have advised the Sudan government to be flexible, to find a political solution for Darfur."

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