Word: africa
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...dragon's wing has twitched. A tiny shift in China's Africa policy might just lead to peace in Darfur. China is Sudan's largest trading partner, buying 65% of its oil. Until now Beijing has protected Khartoum from the Western world, which was crying genocide and demanding intervention and sanctions. Now China has helped persuade Sudan to accept a new United Nations-led peacekeeping force of 26,000 military personnel and police, subsuming the 7,000 African Union peacekeepers who have failed to have any significant impact on the conflict...
...with other developing countries.) But lately, China has displayed a new willingness to twist arms in Sudan, and its officials have been talking in different terms about the crisis there. Listen, for example, to Liu Guijin, China's Special Envoy on Darfur, speaking in June at a conference on Africa: "China supports African countries in their efforts to improve democracy and the rule of law, and to practice good governance ... Closer cooperation between China and Africa is helpful to African countries in maintaining stability and enhancing governing capacity...
...straight out of a Western textbook on African development. That's a mark of how much changed in recent months as the Chinese grew increasingly frustrated by Sudan's stubborn refusal to cooperate with the U.N. At a closed conference in Beijing in late July, one Chinese adviser on Africa said pointedly: "The Sudanese government should be more cooperative with the international community and make more efforts to find a solution to the Darfur crisis...
...China's stance changed? One reason is that it suffered a recent setback in Africa. The murder by separatist rebels of nine Chinese oil workers in Ethiopia in April shocked Beijing, which sees itself as a benign - and welcome - force in Africa. China now has huge investments across the continent, yet realizes that it cannot rely on African governments to protect its interests. Whatever the public expressions of eternal friendship, we should expect to see the Chinese bypassing government contacts to engage more at a local level wherever they have operations in Africa. A second explanation is that China...
...would be wrong to take this to mean that China has fallen into line and adopted Western positions on Africa. China would like to position itself as the mediator between an aggressive, imperialist West and a recalcitrant but misunderstood Sudan government. In the U.N. Security Council, Beijing secured the removal of phrases from the British-drafted resolution on Darfur, including the threat of sanctions if Sudan obstructed the U.N. deployment, and the condemnation of Khartoum for past violence against its own people...