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China Courts Secessionists in Sudan

China is courting the secessionist government of oil-rich southern Sudan, an apparent departure from Beijing's decades-long opposition to independence movements abroad.

 

Sudan, after nearly constant civil war over the past five decades, is seeing tensions boil again ahead of a planned independence referendum early next year that stands to split Africa's largest country in two. Voters from the oil-rich, largely Christian south are expected to vote to break away from the country's largely Muslim north. As the Jan. 9, 2011, election date approaches, both sides accuse the other of amassing troops.

 

The vote poses a conundrum for China. Beijing has consistently opposed independence movements abroad, lest it embolden separatist sympathies at home. And despite its recent overtures to the south, Beijing seeks to maintain its longstanding economic ties with Khartoum, the seat of Sudan's government and center of northern power. China armed and supported the north in the 23-year civil war against the south from 1983 to 2005, in which two million people are believed to have died. It continues to arm Khartoum and has built the north infrastructure projects, including the largest hydroelectric dam in Africa.

 

China's predicament in Sudan underscores the perils of its push into Africa, as it attempts to lock down resources to fuel its double-digit economic growth. The resources that have attracted big investments from abroad have also stirred political turmoil in other countries such as Guinea, a leading producer of bauxite, and Niger, home to huge uranium reserves.

 

"It is a delicate issue for China," said Dru Gladney, an expert on Chinese minorities at Pomona College in California. China has until now portrayed itself as a leader of developing countries, he said. But its own rapid development has changed that relationship. "Encouraging a so-called separatist movement is one that is going to complicate that [noninterventionist] position very much."

 

China has a pragmatic reason for tolerating a potentially independent south: It is home to 80% of Sudan's oil reserves, including most of the China National Petroleum Corp.'s four oil concessions, granted to it by Khartoum. Beijing's stake amounts to 40% of Sudan's oil industry.

 

Sudan exports 60% of its oil to China. Sudanese production accounts for 7% of China's annual consumption.

 

In 2008, China opened a consulate in Juba, the south's capital, an unusual move for China in a place with separatist aspirations. Last week, a Chinese Communist Party delegation visited southern officials. Top officials from the south have also visited China, said Li Baodong, China's U.N. ambassador, in an interview during a United Nations Security Council diplomatic mission to Sudan this month.

 

And Kenyan officials say China has expressed interest in a new pipeline for southern oil. Last week, the south's government collected bids to build a route that would avoid the country's current main line to the north, a 1,000-mile pipeline to a Chinese-financed refinery, and go through Kenya instead.

 

"China is one of the parties that has been invited to participate," said Alfred Mutua, a Kenyan government spokesman.

 

Sudanese officials didn't respond to requests for comment.

 

Mr. Li said the referendum is "their internal affair and we are not getting into it. We respect the sovereignty and territorial integrity of this country."

 

Sudan has fought two civil wars starting at its 1956 independence from Britain. The second ended in 2005, when a U.S.-brokered cease-fire offered Sudan's south the option to vote for independence from the north.

 

The vote's timing has been cast into doubt amid disputes over which Sudanese will be eligible to cast ballots and where the future states' borders would be drawn.

 

A further complication is a deadlock over the division of oil revenues. Under terms of the 2005 peace deal, the north and south have shared the country's oil proceeds equally, though the south claims it is being short-changed. The south's proposal to pump oil through Kenya is likely to further inflame the Khartoum government of President Omar al-Bashir.

 

Mr. Bashir has threatened renewed civil war if these matters aren't resolved before the vote. Salva Kiir, president of the semi-autonomous south, has warned that if the vote is dragged out, the south might hold its own referendum. The majority of southerners favor secession. The U.S. has asked China to use its influence with Khartoum to hold a credible vote on time, a senior U.S. official said.

 

Beijing has cracked down, often violently, on independence protests in Tibet and Xinjiang. Beijing also considers Taiwan a breakaway province and seeks reunification, by force if necessary.

 

Those separatist pressures have shaped China's outlook on independence movements in other countries. China opposed independence declared in 2008 by Kosovo, the breakaway Serbian province. Taiwan was among the first to recognize Kosovo's independence.

 

Until early this year, Beijing staunchly opposed independence in Sudan's south. But that stance has appeared to shift as the international community has pushed the vote.

 

"I don't think anyone believes that the referendum process can be stopped," said Fabienne Hara, an Africa specialist in New York for the Brussels-based International Crisis Group. "It is pragmatism."

 

While it is caught between its stance on separatism and its economic-self interest, Mr. Gladney of Pomona said Beijing had reluctantly made its choice. "It's whichever cat catches mice—and in this case, the cat that supports a separatist, Christian group will catch more mice for China," he said.

 

 

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