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| Liu Guijin: After years of vagueness, China's envoy is blunt. xinhua/ap |
China speaks out on Darfur crisis
Keen not to taint Olympics, and under pressure from West, Beijing sends envoy to Khartoum with strong words.
from the February 25, 2008 edition
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As Sudan's major trade partner, buying nearly three-quarters of its oil exports, and also selling large arms shipments to Sudan, China is thought to have special influence in Khartoum.
Liu's expected mission is to parade China's achievements in Sudan and de-link the Darfur conflict from the Olympic Games.
"I think they've realized this level of criticism is really damaging to their image," said Kerry Brown, an associate fellow at Chatham House. "In the early 1990s they wouldn't have [cared]. But now they are so nervous about the Olympics, we actually might see them do something new."
Liu's trip this weekend to Sudan, his fourth since he got the job, has a dual purpose, says He Wenping, an Africa expert at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, a government-run think tank in Beijing. "The first goal is to keep things moving towards a solution of the Darfur issue because there have been a lot of delays," she says.
"The government also intends to depoliticize the Olympics," she adds. "They do not want Darfur hanging over the Olympics."
Dr. He does not expect international pressure to change what she says is China's preference for diplomatic efforts, rather than such tactics as sanctions against Khartoum.
"I don't think the pressure will lead to a dramatic U-turn," she says. "But it has had some influence. As the pressure mounts, of course the government has to respond" with "active measures" such as Liu's visit to Sudan.
International pressure has changed China's approach to the Darfur crisis before, says Chris Alden, an expert on Sino-African relations at the London School of Economics. "From a public defense of Sudan" until 2004, Beijing has "shifted in the UN Security Council to successfully getting Khartoum to accept an international peacekeeping force," he says.
But pressure from the West and nongovernmental organizations was not necessarily the driving force, Dr. Alden suggests. Rather, the increasingly obvious frustration among African leaders with Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir's government (denying him the AU presidency two years in a row, and sending in an AU intervention force) was "more important," he says.
Beijing "could either be seen as going against the grain of African opinion, or getting in line with the African position, and they got in line," Alden suggests.
The new wave of pressure, however, is unlikely to significantly alter Beijing's approach, predicts Alden. "It seems they will stick to their guns against sanctions, but say they are open to any other form of pressure."
But while the Spielberg resignation may sting, some analysts say it merely points to larger problems with China's foreign policy.
"The Spielberg dilemma is a reaction to an even bigger dilemma," says Alexander Neill, head of the Royal United Services Institute's Asia Security Programme. "It's a grander issue. It's linked to the party and to patriotism, and nationalism, and it's showing."
Mr. Neill says, "China has to re-evaluate as a global stakeholder just how it becomes involved with countries that have civil war issues, internecine struggles, regimes that are unpalatable to its neighbors or the West.
"It is going to need some tweaking, because its policy of noninterference is wearing a bit thin."
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