China’s not alone in failing Darfur

It has been a troubling year for China’s policymakers as they face the diplomatic fall-out from the country’s fast-expanding interests in Africa. Chinese oil workers have been taken hostage in Ethiopia and Nigeria, and opposition groups are now targeting Chinese firms in Sudan. Steven Spielberg’s broadside against China’s Sudan policy was just the latest reaction to Beijing’s tangled web of African interests.

China’s role as oil investor and arms supplier to Chad and Sudan came into focus this month as Sudanese-backed rebels nearly toppled President Idriss Deby’s shaky regime in Ndjamena. Last August, Deby broke diplomatic relations with Taiwan in favour of a more promising economic deal from Beijing and some protection from Sudan’s regional meddling.


The Sudanese regime had wanted the rebels it armed and trained to take over in Chad and block the EU’s imminent deployment of peacekeepers on Chad’s border with Darfur. But Deby thwarted the plan with French military help and weapons from Libya. As European diplomats agonised over the prospect of their military mission being sidelined, Beijing stayed silent.

As western states tried to help negotiate a settlement on Kenya’s election battle, Beijing was silent again. Its sole official comment was an editorial in the People’s Daily on 14 January, arguing that ‘Western-style democracy simply isn’t suited to African conditions, but rather it carries with it the roots of disaster. The election crisis in Kenya is just one typical example.’

Observer