China's Foreign Aids and Human Rights Concerns - Thoughts Provoked by Darfur Humanitarian Crisis
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The United Nations Security Council passed its No. 1796 Resolution on July 31, 2007, deciding to dispatch a 26,000-man AU-UN mixed peacekeeping troop to Darfur on December 3, 2007. Though the resolution authorized to dispatch the peacekeeping troop, it strengthened the Darfure issue could not be resolved merely through the military way. Wang Guangya, Chinese Ambassador to the United Nations, said after the UNSC vote, that the peacekeeping move was only one aspect of solving the problem while the other aspect was the political process. As a result, the resolving methods ought to be double-tracked and the second track that promoted negotiation between the Sudanese government and the local rebelled organizations should not be abandoned but accelerated. The draft of the resolution was in fact proposed on July 11, 2006, which gained widespread supports from the international community but was strongly opposed by the Sudanese government and UNSC's three nonpermanent members in Africa. Chinese Ambassador to the United Nations Wang Guangya and other members of the Chinese delegation to the United Nations made their biggest efforts to make consultation on this resolution with other delegations, trying to weaken some parts of the resolution which could not be accepted by the Sudanese government. Sudan's discontent was concentrated on the authorization toward the UN peacekeeping troop, fearing that it would uncontrollably interfere in Sudan's internal affairs. China showed its understandings toward this and therefore suggested that the AU-UN mixed troop should not be deployed until granted by Sudan and China opposed the resolution on multilateral economic and diplomatic sanctions against Sudan. After the amendment of the resolution by stipulating the peacekeeping troop will resort to forces only for protecting itself, providing humanitarian aids and protecting the civilians from attacks, the Sudanese government finally dissolved suspicions and accepted the No. 1769 Resolution. China has played a pivotal role during the negotiation. The Sudanese government's acceptance of the resolution meant the ending of the first stage and the beginning of the second. Though Sudan still reserved its opinions on the third stage, however, it consented to have a discussion with all parties related.
On the second stage of political resolve, the Sudanese government said it was willing to negotiate with the enemy forces, boosting them join in the Darfur peaceful agreement. Under this circumstance, China believes that further sanctions against Sudan will only leave the situation more complicated but by no means help reach the agreement. International organizations, including the United Nations and the African Union, and other nations have made great efforts to alleviate the tense situation in Darfur. A peaceful agreement including disarming the anti-government organizations was eventually signed after several rounds of negotiations between the Sudanese government and the two rebelled organizations. The Sudanese government insisted that the AU-UN mixed troop should be under command of a man from an African country. After the consultation between Sudan and the African Union, it was decided that the troop would be under the command of a Nigerian.
China started to deploy 135 advance peacekeeping sappers on November 24, whose tasks included drilling wells, building bridges and mending roads, a good preparation for the third stage. China has also sent out medical teams. The total number of the Chinese troop will eventually rise to 315. The Chinese corporations in Sudan will provide Sudan with more aids, for instance, Huawei and CITIC Group have already donated long-range education facilities and 16 computers and are preparing to provide more educational donation. Sinopec and some other companies planned to raise two-million-US-dollar humanitarian aid. Moreover, the Chinese government has dispatched agronomists to Sudan, designing agricultural technological centers and providing more aids to the agricultural development. To improve the humanitarian situation in Darfur, China has already provided it with five sums of aid, totaling 80 million RMB, or 11 million US dollars. Meanwhile, China has provided 18 million US dollars to the League of Arab States and 500,000 US dollar donation to the United Nations to resolve the Darfur issue.
China has taken an attitude to actively cooperate with the United Nations, the African Union and the League of Arab States on the Sudanese humanitarian crisis. As a matter of fact, China is playing a pivotal role in dispatching peacekeeping staff, providing humanitarian aid, promoting Sudan to accept Annan's three-stage plan and boosting all forces in Sudan to reach a peaceful agreement through political resolution. Nevertheless, China's attempts did not prevent Steven Spielberg, under great pressures, quitting his job, nor stopped the mouths of the US congressmen (The US Congress passed a resolution on March 6 this year, opposing President Bush and the congressmen to show their faces in the Beijing Olympics with the reason that China did not try its best on the Darfur issue). There are not only lessons China should draw, but also problems of some westerners who conceive prejudice and even hostility against China.
The lessons China should learn from the Darfur issue are: the century-long humiliation that China underwent in the modern history made the western imperialists' deeds including invasion and intervention remain fresh in the country's memory, as a result, it pays more heeds to the diplomatic principles of respecting sovereignty. But if China wants to show the world it is a responsible nation, it must well balance the principle that persevere not to interfere in others' internal affairs and the will to boost resolve the humanitarian crises in the international community. The practice of neglecting humanitarian problems and sticking to nonintervention will not be recognized by the international community in the globalization age after the cold war. Although China quickly changed its practices after realizing this, yet the already-existing influences did not make China's efforts fully acknowledged by some countries and international nongovernmental organizations. In other words, China got half the result with twice the effort. If China had taken some proactive actions from the very beginning, the effects would have been much better. In view of this, China should become more sensitive in this sort of human rights issues in the future, especially in those who receive important aid from and have close relations with China, turning the passive situation to an active one. Of course, the intervention can be dialogues and consultations under the premises of fully respecting the country's sovereignty and territorial integration and on an equal basis, just like what China has already done.
On the other hand, it is unreasonable for some western nations to ask China to give up its oilfield exploration in Sudan or to take the main responsibilities for the Sudanese human rights plight. First of all, China's oil exploration in Sudan belongs to normal international economic cooperation, which has remarkably boosted Sudan's economic growth. Sudan's GDP growth rate ranks among the best in Africa, which is, to a large extent, thanks to China's economic aid and cooperation. China's withdrawal from Sudan will only bring about an economic regradation of the latter. However, just as what the Chinese government pointed out, the root of the crisis is poverty. Then imagine how can the more poverty-stricken nation resolve this crisis in a better way? The answer is definitely negative. Secondly, facts show that political approaches can be effective in resolving crises, better than diplomatic measures and economic sanctions. Thirdly, when China exerted its biggest efforts in promoting to resolve the humanitarian crises, have those who call for more pressures on China ever self-examined whether or not their nations have done better in the countries bearing intimate relations with them than what China did in Sudan; whether or not their nations have well taken all the international duties that they should according to international treaties in all the countries with human rights plights?
(The author is a Research Fellow of Institute of American Studies and Director of Research Office of Political Science, Chinese Academy of Social Sciences (CASS).)
(The speech was delivered at the first session of the Beijing Forum on Human Rights.)
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