China & the Contradictions of ‘Non-interference’ in Sudan

That China and Sudan's 'all weather friendship' has been a constant refrain in the public discourse of official interaction since diplomatic relations were established in 1959. More recently, however, the Chinese government has also claimed to be a 'responsible' power that exerted 'influence' on the Sudanese government to accept a United Nations-African Union peacekeeping force in Darfur and sought credit for its 'constructive' role in passing Security Council Resolution 1769 on 31 July 2007 that enabled this. During President Hu Jintao's state visit to Sudan in February 2007, billboards sponsored by the China National Petroleum Corporation (CNPC) in Khartoum proclaimed 'the friendship between the peoples of Sudan and China' to be 'evergreen' but differences of opinion on the question of Darfur emerged following the meeting between with the Sudanese President. President Hu is reported to have told President Bashir to accept a proposal by the then UN Secretary General Kofi Annan to allow a UN-African Union peacekeeping mission into Darfur, saying that 'Darfur is a part of Sudan and you have to resolve this problem' (McDoom, 2007).

This article considers why the Chinese government's enduring principle of noninterference has come under increasing and more visible strain in recent years in Sudan. In so doing, it is particularly concerned with the changing nature of China's role in Sudan. It argues that today the Chinese government faces the challenge of reconciling its formal, established policy of non-interference with the more substantive Chinese economic involvement in Sudan that has grown over the past decade as well as changes in Sudanese politics after the Comprehensive Peace Agreement (CPA) of January 2005 between Northern and Southern Sudan. China's doctrine of non-interference had previously benefited from the absence of widespread involvement in Sudan. Since the mid-1990s, the Chinese role has become more embedded and, as this inevitably has become intertwined in Sudanese politics, more consequential. The nature and evolution of China's involvement in Sudan has given rise to a number of challenges for Beijing to the point where Sudan has become a notable issue affecting China's role in Africa and international politics more generally.

In addressing these issues I first consider the longer history of Chinese involvement within Sudan and its recent intensification. China's close association with the government of Sudan during the 1990s, particularly the role of Chinese oil companies in spearheading oil development amidst war, politicised its role. From here I address the main areas in which China has become part of politics in Sudan, including its diplomacy on Darfur and developing relations with the Government of Southern Sudan.

Old Friend, New Actor

Today China is the most important external economic actor in northern Sudan, whose oil-fuelled economic boom saw real GDP growing officially by some 11.8 per cent in 2006 according to the IMF. China has played the leading role in the reorientation of Sudan's foreign economic relations toward 'Asia', now Sudan's leading regional block for trade and investment. According to the Bank of Sudan, the Asian–and particularly the Chinese–share of Sudan's total imports and exports have increased appreciably since oil exports started in late 1999.¹ In 2006 China accounted for 20.8 per cent ($1,679.4m) of the Asian share of 43.6 per cent (US$3,522.5m) of Sudan's total imports, and 75 per cent ($4,243.9m) of a total Asian share of 86.1 per cent (US$4,872.8m) of total exports.² A decade ago, in 1996, however, China accounted for 4.3 per cent of an Asia's 20.6 per cent proportion of Sudan's imports and 6.8 per cent of an Asian total of 17.9 per cent of Sudan's exports.

The salient economic position China now occupies in Sudan has been achieved comparatively recently but continues a longer history of ties. These are marked by the unique symbolic connection of 'Chinese' Gordon. After a career featuring service for the Qing Dynasty fighting Taiping rebels in China, as well as a period as Governor General of Sudan, Gordon was killed in Khartoum in 1885 but continues to be a common bond as the personification of shared colonial oppression. However, the continuity in the formal principles governing political relations between China and Sudan after independence is striking: from Premier Zhou Enlai's visit to Khartoum in 1964 to President Hu Jintao's visit in 2007, the Chinese foreign policy principles organised around sovereignty, territorial integrity and non-interference have endured at the level of political discourse. As Premier Zhou Enlai asserted at the Bandung Conference in 1955:

Despite the public prominence of historical relations, in certain ways it is the absence of a thick history of Chinese involvement in Sudan that has also contributed to good ties. The principle of non-interference may have been brought under visible strain over recent debates on external intervention in Darfur, but the thickening of ties and the greater Chinese role that has developed within Sudan over the past decade has also strained the China's doctrine of non-interference. The Chinese government may be an 'old friend' of Sudan, but in practice China has only recently come to be a notable part of Sudan's foreign relations. In just over a decade the disparate range of actors that now constitutes 'China' in Sudan has moved from the margins to a more significant position in Sudanese affairs, with important political consequences. China can thus also be considered as a 'new actor' in Sudanese politics since the early 1990s (Deng, 1995:383). The broad continuity of principles governing relations has proceeded concurrently with the growth of a more widespread Chinese presence and role within Sudan. The Chinese government has thus found itself attempting to reconcile non-interference with the political repercussions of deepened involvement.

The NIF's Turn to China

The National Islamic Front (NIF) took power in Sudan through a military coup in June 1989. The Chinese government initially appeared uncertain about the NIF's Islamist politics, evident when its leader Omar el-Bashir visited Beijing in November 1990. However, relations resumed through an Iranian-funded Chinese arms deal to Khartoum in 1991. Worth an estimated US$300 million, this included two helicopters, one hundred 1,000-pound high-altitude bombs, and a large ammunition cache and would be followed by further Chinese exports of military aircraft, small arms and light weapons to the Government of Sudan during the 1990s. Efforts were made to expand economic ties, and Khartoum hosted a Chinese trade fair in 1993. The Government of Sudan (GOS) expressed interest in Chinese involvement in developing Sudan's oil sector in 1994 (after Chevron, which had discovered oil in 1978, sold its concessions at a loss in 1992), and CNPC conducted a preliminary survey (see Jakobson and Zha, 2006). In September 1995 China's 'energy cooperation' with Sudan gathered momentum when President Bashir visited Beijing and secured a reduced rate loan, with an agreement between the China Exim Bank and the Bank of Sudan to finance oil development following in December. At the beginning of March 1997, after commencing operations in Southern Sudan (block 6), CNPC signed a co-operation agreement with Petronas, Talisman (then Arakis) and Sudapet to develop three oil blocks thereby sharing investment risk.

Sudan's domestic politics and ongoing civil wars coupled with difficult foreign relations were the principle dynamics facilitating China's economic entry into and expansion within Sudan during the 1990s, initially through oil and later an expanded portfolio of business activities (see p. 99 for details). The NIF had restricted options to develop the vitally important oil sector. Its renewed war against the Sudan People's Liberation Movement/Army (SPLM/A) continued, prosecuted as part of a project of Islamist transformation in Sudan. Turning to China was a tactical move compelled by necessity, and was accompanied by internal debate within Sudan's ruling circles about the merits of engaging with China. What counted most was that Beijing provided a politically dependable option backed up by willingness to invest.

The circumstances of Sudan's foreign relations of the 1990s and its untapped economic potential rendered Sudan a strong investment opportunity for China. Khartoum's hard line Islamist government had backed Saddam Hussein during the 1991 Gulf War and was associated with supporting terrorism. On 12 August 1993 the US State Department designated Sudan a state sponsor of terrorism. The attempted assassination of the Egyptian President in June 1995 by Sudanese security elements further contributed to Sudan's regional isolation in the Middle East, reinforcing the NIF's need to turn to China. Having extremely difficult relations with the IMF and World Bank, it also became the object of sanctions by the UN Security Council (1996) and the US (1997); an American missile attack on a pharmaceutical factory in Khartoum followed in 1998. Sudan was viewed by China as a friendly state with a more open oil market not, as elsewhere in Africa, dominated by established Western corporations. Sudan's political isolation and its vast, largely untapped natural resources created a strong opportunity for China. Sudan's natural resources were seen as able to offset the GOS's finance problems. The country held high potential even if its difficult politics and war-affected economy were seen to present a combination of risks and potential benefits to Chinese businesses (Tang, 1997).

China & Oil Development

The most important factor through which China's role in Sudan has contradicted tenable claims to non-interference has been its involvement in oil development. 'Oil co-operation' between China and Sudan took relations into a more consequential phase. As the slogan situated underneath the CNPC sign and above the entrance to the Sudan Hotel in Khartoum aptly exhorted, this entailed a 'crossing of boundaries' (chuangxin kuayue). Chinese oil engagement, like that of other state-backed oil investment including from Malaysia, was part of longer efforts to create a functioning oil industry in Sudan. Oil had been central to politics in Sudan before China entered in the 1990s. It had been an important factor contributing to the breakdown of the 1972 peace accord. The role of America (through Chevron) and France (Total) in Sudan's oil sector had previously rendered both 'far from disinterested observers' (Alier, 2003:263). The operations of national oil companies from China and Malaysia after the mid-1990s (and later India) continued this position, albeit with greater practical impact.

From early 1997 the CNPC operated a 40 per cent share in the Greater Nile Petroleum Operating Company (GNPOC), the main oil consortium in Sudan, to develop three concessions in the areas of Unity, Heglig and Kaikang (blocks 1, 2 and 4) in Southern Sudan. CNPC partnered with Petronas (30 per cent), Talisman (whose 25 per cent share was sold off to the Indian company ONGC in 2003) and the Sudanese company Sudapet (5 per cent). Oil production in Southern Sudan had been constrained by the lack of a proper infrastructure. It was necessary to construct the infrastructure required to extract, transport, process and export oil from Southern Sudan, including field production facilities, airfields and all-weather roads. A CNPC subsidiary, the China Petroleum Engineering and Construction Corporation, was involved in constructing a 1,600km buried pipeline for GNPOC to connect oil production with the international market. The Khartoum oil refinery was built as a CNPC-Ministry of Energy joint venture with an investment of some $638 million and became operational in February 2000. Following GNPOC, the second major oil consortium in Sudan, Petrodar, was incorporated in 2001. CNPC took a 41 per cent share and Sinopec 6 per cent to develop two concessions (blocks 3 and 7) in the Melut Basin of Upper Nile. Oil infrastructure was developed in a similar fashion, including a 1,392 km pipeline to Port Sudan, which became operational in April 2006.

Sudan exported oil for the first time on 30 August 1999 from the Port Bashair terminal, near Port Sudan. This defining event marked the success of a GOS-driven oil development strategy in which the Chinese role was decisive. In the process, Sudan attained a comparatively important position in China's energy relations in Africa for a brief period; Sudan contributed 9.26 per cent of China's oil imports, or 40.68 per cent of China's African oil imports as a whole in 2002 (according to MOFCOM statistics). CNPC's engagement in Sudan would contribute to and span an important phase in the restructuring and overseas expansion of the Chinese oil sector. For China, Sudan was a comparatively very successful case of its overseas oil business engagement.

In Sudan, however, oil development during the 1990s was inextricably connected with armed conflict. The oil sector, crucial to the GOS, was targeted by the SPLA and other groups. In January 2000, for example, the GOS was reportedly losing around US$1m in revenue every two hours from the bomb-damaged GNPOC pipeline. Oil development was militarised, influenced conflict patterns on the ground and exacerbated civilian suffering. The Sudan Armed Forces (SAF) combined aerial bombing raids and use of proxy forces (northern Baggara Arab militias and Nuer groups from Southern Sudan) in attacks aimed at depopulating Nuer and Dinka settlements and cattle camps located in oil-rich areas to enable oil expansion. As such, oil companies became 'partners with the state in human destruction' (Jok, 2007:198). The successful development and running of Sudan's oil industry amidst the civil wars by CNCP and other foreign oil companies demonstrated a willingness to side with Khartoum entailing complicity in state-sponsored violence:

The Politics of 'Blind Eye' Support

China's role in Sudan developed as a state-supported economic engagement operating in public according to the principle of ‘Non-interference’. Official ties have developed through a framework of state-state relations in which the Chinese government has claimed, in its own terms, to have successfully pursued the principles of non-interference, mutual respect and mutual benefit. In practice China's role was marked by contradictions between its formal guiding principles and the impact of these as interwoven into wartime Sudanese politics. Nonetheless, for the GOS, China's approach was appreciated; as President Bashir has repeatedly affirmed, China has been a true friend of Sudan, read as its governing apparatus. For China, its approach clearly bore dividends for expanding investment in Sudan, and if there would be political fallout affecting the credibility of China's international image as a result of Darfur, then the deepening of business links after 2003 testified to the continued centrality of economic relations. The manner in which Chinese involvement has intermeshed with the politics of armed conflict in Sudan since the 1990s has meant that the policy of non-interference has not merely been strained by thickening links but has also been actively contradicted; given the nature of relations between the Chinese government and the NIF, non-interference has thus been increasingly conveyed as rhetoric masking the pursuit of hard, realist interests.

The thrust of the Chinese approach as manifested in practice in Sudan, and elsewhere in Africa, is to pursue business as a form of applied politics. The notion that non-interference allows for 'business, not politics', a formula bearing artificially neat connotations of separate domains, clearly depends on an ability to navigate political waters. Nor is it static and will necessarily be progressively enmeshed in politics as business develops, and in the process entails an informal but integral logic of political negotiation. However, the upshot of China's pursuit of strategic resource and economic objectives in Sudan is that these have contributed to a changing political economy of resource extraction, most importantly through oil development. This increased the revenues available to Sudan's governing elites in historically unprecedented terms. Oil consolidated and expanded the resource base of the GOS, strengthening its political and military foundations. The effect of this was to contribute to a political outcome by making a significant contribution to the continuation of NIF rule.

The basic synergy between China's business objectives and the political objectives of the NIF, now called the National Congress Party (NCP), continues. Political relations have been characterised by high-level government and corporate ties. Party-party relations are formalised by a largely symbolic cooperative agreement between the NCP and the Communist Party of China. Both have enjoyed mutual benefit, a principle that has fared better at the level of state-state relations than noninterference. What is frequently referred to as China's 'blind-eye' support for the NIF has been the wellspring of grievances in many quarters in Sudan (el-Tigani, 2006). This includes China's programme of 'military co-operation' and arms transfers. Chinese arms supplies to Sudan have occurred in the context of the close military relations the two governments have cultivated. Chinese actors helped develop northern Sudan's arms manufacturing industry in the late 1990s. This was a contribution that in no sense could be considered devoid of political implications. Military links appear to have intensified after high-level talks between the SAF and PLA in Beijing in March 2002. A series of further contacts followed, including the visit by a high-level Chinese military delegation to Sudan in October 2005 for talks at the Ministry of National Defence. The SAF Chief of Joint Staff toured China in April 2007. Arms transfers were a further related area of Chinese support. UN Comtrade data (which relies on government-reported statistics) shows that between 2002-2005, when Khartoum was attempting to crush military rebellion in Darfur and negotiate peace with the SPLA, China was the largest reported supplier of military weapons and small arms to Sudan (see 'Small Arms Survey', 2007). A report by the UN Panel of Experts established under Resolution 1591 (2005) found that 'most ammunition currently used by parties to the conflict in Darfur is manufactured either in the Sudan or in China' (UN Security Council, 2006:37).

Straining Non-interference From Within: Expanding Ties after the CPA

The CPA inaugurated a formal peace between Northern and Southern Sudan and established a new architecture of Sudan's formal political institutions. In reality there was strong continuity of ties between the Chinese government and the key power-holders within the NCP with whom Beijing had directed its relations. The Government of National Unity (GONU), made up of the NCP and the SPLM continued to co-operate with Beijing. Key strategic ministries were kept under the control of the NCP including the Ministry of Energy and Mining, which remained under the control of Awad Ahmed al Jaz, a key figure in Sudan's China relations and its oil sector as a whole. China's preference for bilateral government relations continued. This has featured the deployment of Chinese police personnel and military peacekeepers; the first deployment of 430 troops became fully operational in May 2006 and a second group of 435 UNMIS peacekeepers were sent to Sudan in mid-2007.

As China's third largest trade partner in the African continent after South Africa and Nigeria, Sudan is a comparatively established market for Chinese companies as well as a gateway to regional markets, including the Common Market for Eastern and Southern Africa. Economic relations have deepened on the back of the momentum achieved through oil investment, which acted as the beachhead for expanded commercial relations. Even before the CPA, its post-war reconstruction market was identified as an area of expanded business opportunity, especially given that sanctions restrict western investment (Jing, 2004). Sudan received 46 per cent (US$146.70m) of China's net non-financial overseas direct investment to Africa in 2004 and 22 per cent ($351.53m) of its accumulated net overseas direct investment to Africa at the end of 2005 (China Statistical Yearbook, 2006:759). The oil-boom has been conducive to the market expansion of Chinese manufactured products in Sudan. China, which operates a trade imbalance with Sudan, has exported increasing quantities of products to Sudan ranging from textile garments and footwear, to automobiles and electric goods such as computers, TVs, or fans. The expanded Chinese business presence in Sudan has involved a greater diversity of companies, progressing beyond the key state-owned enterprises to feature ventures started by Chinese entrepreneurs in Sudan together with small private entrepreneurs involved in service industries. Besides oil, construction, agriculture, mining, and manufacturing have been growth sectors, together with an assortment of transport infrastructure and energy supplies. These feature the el-Gaili power station, being built by the Harbin Power Engineering Company, and the controversial Meroe dam at the fourth cataract of the Nile River in northern Sudan. Construction of the dam is led by a Chinese consortium, with French, German and Swiss partners, and is supported by funding from Middle Eastern investors and the China Exim Bank. China's participation has been the most politicised and linked to conflict and displacement that has accompanied work on the dam (see Askouri, 2007).

Greater Chinese business activity and social presence in Sudan has contributed to a perceived contrast between past and current Chinese involvement in Sudan. The Chinese interventions of the 1970s, when Chinese workers were seen to return to China on completing their work, are generally remembered positively. The Chinese role in Sudan today is far more ambivalently critically regarded. The impact of competitive Chinese commercial involvement in Sudan has also provoked complaints about the dumping of Chinese goods and the stiff economic competition for Sudanese business. There have been calls to protect Sudanese industry and craftspeople from increased Chinese imports into Sudan, which have made 'made local production retreat in the face of the Chinese dumping' (Khalil, 2007).

Oil activity has expanded after the CPA, especially in Unity State and Upper Nile, and CNPC signed new concessions in 2007. This process has not been accompanied by progress for civilians affected by oil activity. Forced civilian displacement in Southern Sudan resulting from oil activity has continued, though largely overshadowed by Darfur. Oil rich regions are generating considerable revenue, but there have been negligible improvements in service delivery for affected civilian populations. Grievances concerning oil practices, the environmental impact of oil and employment policies of oil companies abound. Problems on the ground often reflect continuity with power relations and structures between commanders and oil companies established during the war, which ensure oil operations continue but prevent effective action to redress civilian complaints.

Stretching Formal Non-interference: Darfur

China has acted as Sudan's key international patron and has been crucial to the NCP's foreign relations on the question of international intervention in Darfur, far more so than other states like India and Malaysia with significant investments in Sudan that have also supported Khartoum. The core leadership, centred on President Bashir, would not have been able to pursue its strategy in the absence of Chinese support, though the central agency in the destructive counterinsurgency campaign in Darfur has been the ruling faction around President Bashir in the NCP.

China's diplomacy on Darfur became more publicly engaged from 2006 to the point where its efforts to 'influence' the Sudanese government on Darfur blurred the boundaries of non-interference. The protracted nature of the conflict as well as international criticism and pressure presented strong self-interested reasons for Beijing to act. China's diplomatic breakthrough when Chad switched away from Taiwan in August 2006 presented a further interest in stability in Chad and western Sudan. Beijing appeared initially to underestimate the political risk posed by Darfur to its interests within Sudan, as well as its standing in Africa and on the international stage. More involved diplomacy was first enacted behind the scenes. In November 2006 Wang Guangya played a widely acknowledged role in helping achieve a compromise deal during negotiations in Addis Ababa on the 'Annan plan', which called for an expanded UN peacekeeping role in Darfur. Beijing had insisted on the need for Khartoum's consent to admitting a UN force into Darfur. President Hu's proposal in February 2007 to resolve Darfur and efforts to persuade President Bashir to accept the UN force were thus notable, one instance being the visit by Assistant Foreign Minister Zhai Jun to Sudan in early April 2007 where he urged 'flexibility' on the UN force. As Beijing subsequently claimed, Chinese pressure appears to have been important in persuading President Bashir to accept a UN military mission in Darfur shortly afterwards.

The trend toward more pro-active engagement on Sudan in China's international diplomacy over Darfur was discernible before the Beijing Olympics in 2008 were connected to China's role in Sudan through a 'genocide Olympics' campaign by activist groups in the US (though this may have briefly catalysed Beijing's response when it appeared to advocate an Olympic boycott). The appointment of a new special ambassador, Liu Guijin, in May 2007 appeared to be part of China's efforts to redress the damage to its image and contribute to attempted solutions. Such moves also enabled China to promote its own interests through more vocal diplomacy and participation in multilateral forums and initiatives on Darfur. China's more proactive diplomacy was accompanied by continuity in defending the sovereignty of Sudan and arguing against further sanctions, as well as deepening economic links. In attempting to respond to international concerns, maintain good links with Sudan's rulers and achieve an outcome favourable to itself, the Chinese government engaged international constituencies whilst affirming and renewing practical support to the NCP.

China's role in relation to Darfur has been politicised within Sudan. China has been subjected to wide international criticism for its support to the GOS on Darfur, but Beijing's diplomacy also provoked disquiet amongst elements of the ruling NCP for whom China did not do enough to defend it. However, outside of ruling circles, China has again become the main target of armed rebel groups seeking to exercise effective leverage on the NCP. China is by far the most exposed of Sudan's foreign economic partners. The military targeting of Chinese oil interests in the GNPOC field of Defra, Kordofan, Southern Sudan by the Justice and Equality Movement (JEM) in October 2007 was followed by a week-long ultimatum to Beijing to withdraw. The episode underlined Beijing's interest in a political resolution on Darfur and its reliance on Khartoum. Beijing has promoted its support for the UN-African Union Mission in Darfur and the participation of some 315 Chinese military engineers. Within Sudan, however, its participation was already politicised before the advance party of Chinese military engineers were deployed to Nyala on 24 November 2007. While the JEM appeared to change policy on targeting Chinese peacekeepers, and refrain from doing so, it and other rebel groups made plain their opposition to China's involvement in Sudan's oil sector while pointing out their use of Chinese arms to fight against Khartoum.

A further trend suggestive of greater involvement has been the Chinese government's aid programme and its more pro-active, flexible responses to key issues of concern within Sudan. Beijing also stepped up its aid programme to Darfur through humanitarian assistance and initiatives such as funding construction of 120 schools. The new Chinese ambassador to Sudan, Li Chengwen, has promoted China's expanded assistance, for example visiting Nyala in late October 2007 to deliver a batch of aid and also visiting the Meroe dam. Beijing made public efforts to rationalise and justify its role in Sudan in terms of bringing economic development, underlying the efficacy of economic development in reducing and, over the longer term, resolving conflict. Underdevelopment and marginalisation from the centre of political and economic power have certainly been core grievances advanced by the SPLM and later rebel movements in Darfur, but the impact of oil thus far in Sudan has been to further concentrate wealth rather achieve broader development.

At the international level, the Chinese government has lost credibility as a result of its role in Sudan. Beijing's response appears to have proceeded uncertainly between its relations with the NCP, US-led calls to demonstrate that it is a 'responsible stakeholder' in international affairs and promoting the Hu Jintao vision of a more 'harmonious' international world, though China's role in Sudan, particularly its close relations with the NCP, is not one that can be convincingly squared with this vision. Beijing pursued a difficult balancing act of attempting to navigate African and wider external criticism through greater involvement. Having supported the Darfur Peace Agreement of May 2006, it continued to emphasise the importance of political negotiations in Darfur. Ambassador Liu Guijin attended the failed talks in Libya in October 2007 as an observer. However, Beijing is unavoidably seen as partial in such forums. Attempting to be seen as not responding to international, especially American pressure, Beijing has continued to support the Government of Sudan–and key members of the NCP in particular–through words and actions, including at the UN Security Council. Beijing has been in the awkward position of appearing to want to be seen as and receive credit for being a progressive force in a resolution to conflict in Darfur, while continuing to support the NCP, the pivotal actor in the Darfur conflict. In seeking to maintain the principle of non-interference, Beijing has also endeavoured to retain a distinctive part of its framework for conducting state relations in Africa, conscious of the ramifications that any clear departure from this might have in creating precedents for its wider engagement on the continent.

China's Developing Relations with Southern Sudan

The CPA, by altering the political architecture of Sudan, allowed and required a change in China's previously exclusive relations with the government in Khartoum. 'China-Sudan' relations had referred to China's relations with the government of Northern Sudan. However, the CPA and the 'emerging context of Southern Sudan operating as a quasi-independent state and the apparent orientation of its elite towards East and Southern Africa' would alter China's orientation to north Sudan (Nyaba, 2005: 11). The CPA allowed for contact between Beijing and the SPLM members of the GONU, which could be consistent with Beijing's policy of dealing with Sudan's recognised government. The CPA has enabled the Chinese government to explore and enhance relations with the new Government of Southern Sudan (GOSS) created by the CPA. It has also compelled this for reasons of self-interest anchored in the geography of China's oil concessions in Southern Sudan. The creation of the GOSS under the SPLM in Juba, the new capital of Southern Sudan, presented new challenges for Beijing, which had not dealt directly with the SPLM before. The SPLM's post-war China policy was essentially one of engagement predicated upon turning former enemies into friends. It was in principal open to dealing with Beijing as one of a number of potential investors.

China's relations with the GOSS developed as a combination of a mutual willingness to engage, interest in the potential of Chinese assistance for Southern Sudan and the apparent growing recognition by Beijing that it would need to respond to the new political reality in Juba. In particular, Beijing needed to look forward to the possibility of Southern seccession that, while emphasising unity, the CPA allows for via a referendum in 2011. The first notable connection between the SPLM and China took the form of a friendship visit by an SPLM delegation to Beijing in March 2005. Featuring a number of high-ranking SPLM figures, it was led by Salva Kiir Mayardit, then second in command to John Garang, for talks billed as being about possible economic co-operation and assistance from China. In February 2007, and this time as President of Southern Sudan and First-Vice President of Sudan following Garang's death in August 2005, Salva Kiir met President Hu Jintao in Khartoum and welcomed Chinese participation in Southern Sudan's post-war development. As the GOSS faced financial difficulty in early 2007, Beijing subsequently offered a loan (of some $300m) to the GOSS. In July 2007 Salva Kiir toured China and made reassurances that China's oil investments were secure according to the provisions of the CPA, which protect all oil contracts signed prior to the peace agreement, and in terms of a possible seccession after 2011. He reiterated his call for deepened Chinese investment in Southern Sudan. After an official visit by a Chinese government delegation to Juba in late August 2007, a new Chinese aid package was subsequently announced featuring hydro-electric projects and infrastructure construction.

Non-oil Chinese business in Southern Sudan is relatively new and limited, although Chinese products have long circulated as part of regional trade networks. Chinese businesses entered Juba via Kenyan and Ugandan brokers in the form of private joint ventures; for example, the Nile Construction Company entered into a joint venture with the Chinese company Golden Nest in October 2006 to work on construction projects and another Chinese company won contracts to renovate ministers' quarters and the hospital; the prefabricated Beijing Juba Hotel is another new business. Beijing's outreach to the SPLM and Southern Sudan also dovetails with the geography of its regional interests and presence, being connected with Kenya and Uganda or broadly east Africa as well as the Central African Republic and Congo.

This process cumulatively suggests a momentum toward the 'normalisation' of ties and recognition of the changing political reality in Southern Sudan that has been formalised and developed with the CPA. The growth of relations between GOSS and Beijing suggests that for the Chinese government there may not be too high a political cost of dealing with 'pariah' regimes in Africa, given that Southern Sudan was a clear case of China's support for Khartoum's war. However, questions about the SPLM's relations with China continue to be raised and viewed with ambivalence in Southern Sudan. China's regional anchoring of its relations with northern Sudan was further demonstrated by the first meeting of the Sino-Arab Friendship conference at the end of November 2006 in Khartoum, which featured a delegation representing the Chinese Sino-Arab Friendship Association and representatives of over 20 Arab NGOs. For some Southern Sudanese commentators, this was further evidence of China's bias toward the Arab North of Sudan.

Further indications of China's greater willingness to express a more involved opinion on Sudanese politics were seen in statements from Beijing about the CPA after the October 2007 announcement by the SPLM that it was withdrawing cooperation with the NCP in the GONU. This refocused international attention on the future of the peace agreement, underlining how Darfur had overshadowed important issues pertaining to the North-South peace framework. Beijing expressed concern, underlining its desire that the political differences be overcome and the CPA be implemented. Beijing now has a considerable interest in the fate of the CPA and political stability in Sudan. It remains to be seen whether China's new diplomatic positioning and apparent willingness to play a more involved role in Sudan will extend to more active efforts to promote the successful implementation of the CPA.

Conclusion

Darfur is a far more prominent and consequential foreign policy issue for the Chinese government than Southern Sudan was during the period of militarised oil development. The contrast between its current position and serious entry into Sudan in the 1990s is marked. China's diplomacy on Darfur has been pursued at a very different phase of its involvement in Sudan. China's profile during the 1990s was comparatively low; today, it is importing Sudanese oil and, driven by commercial interests, CNPC is looking to increase production. In contrast to a decade ago, and with most of its core oil infrastructure established, investment protection has become a more important factor for China together with the competition Chinese companies face in Sudan from other, predominantly Asian businesses.

China's expanding economic relations with Sudan have been fundamental in the broader shift accompanying Sudan's 'Look East' economic diplomacy. The approach of the Chinese government is not, however, unique in Sudan. Malaysia has pursued a similar political approach, with the distinctive use of Islam to enhance its relations. The Indian government has promoted its own successful commercial entry strategy in Sudan, spearheaded by the national oil company ONGC-Videsh. India has used a version of non-interference and respect for sovereignty to further a commercial agenda underwritten by the Import-Export Bank of India. While India is promoting business expansion within Sudan, it does not approach the Chinese level of bilateral trade, commercial presence or investment. This dominance of China in Sudan's external economic and political relations and prominent role within Sudan, and indications that India may be seen as a potential counterweight to Chinese influence, thus raises questions about the country's dependence on an external partner.

China's principle of non-interference and how this has materialised in practice in Sudan since the 1990s have been incongruent. Most significantly, the relatively recent achievement of a functioning oil sector in Sudan has had–and will continue to have–a considerable political impact by enabling historically unprecedented resources to accrue to the central state. This has fed into the transformation in the politics of the ruling NCP in Khartoum from a revolutionary Islamist project to a more self-interested, pragmatic regime bent on political survival. It has also brought mixed and highly uneven benefits to Sudan through oil development. Noninterference has increasingly been experienced as a principle of intention oriented toward state-state relations that China through military links to the NCP, has used to mask the wider effects of its involvement. Furthermore, China's interest in political stability in Sudan has translated into an interest in the political continuity of NCP rule and now, in certain ways, an effective SPLM government in Southern Sudan. Darfur has drawn China into Sudan's internal politics more than before; the Chinese government has found itself targeted militarily by Darfur rebel groups within Sudan and through advocacy campaigns outside as a means to apply pressure on the NCP. China's increasing involvement within Sudan has also yet to be widely embraced at the level of Sudanese perceptions.

In Sudan, China faces the challenge of accommodating its established policy of noninterference with the growing complexity of Chinese involvement. Conflict in Darfur and the changing nature of North-South politics after the CPA have compelled China to attempt to influence Sudanese politics in ways that strain the limits of noninterference and, with a view to future scenarios raised by the possibility of a return to war, adapt to its changing dynamics. However, a core tension set to endure is that even where the Chinese government has sought to influence the government of Sudan, it faces the uncertain reality that while influence may be possible, control is a different matter. Furthermore, the Chinese government's support to the NCP has alienated it within the traditional established political parties in Northern Sudan and thus left Beijing vulnerable to political reaction resulting in part from the very success of its relations with the GOS and President Bashir. The Chinese government is constrained in its willingness and ability to formally engage other political forces in Sudan; its non-interference framework, strictly applied, restricts its ability to navigate political change in Sudan by inhibiting links with those parties who are due to contest elections in 2009. These include the Umma Party, the leader of whose main faction, Sadiq el-Mahdi, was deposed by the NIF in 1989. As such, and since investment protection can entail exerting leverage in national and local politics, the compatibility of non-interference and the promotion of national interest has emerged as growing tension for China in Sudan.

Sudan is a defining case in China's changing relations with Africa, and an important case in China's wider international politics. Beijing's adherence to the principle of non-interference in internal affairs has been compromised in terms of diplomatic and political action, and wider perceptions. This poses the broader issue of whether it is possible over the longer term for the Chinese government to sustain the principle of non-interference. Mutual non-interference has been an important pillar of China's wider African engagement but this principle, under the new circumstances of China's overseas commercial interests and involvement, can also be regarded as a growing liability to China's own interests if it inhibits efforts to protect investment concerns.