China in new push to resolve crisis in Darfur

Darfuri women walk through the ruins of Sirba village, ransacked during a government offensive to retake the area from Darfur rebels, near west Darfur's capital el-Geneina. Fighting has continued in Darfur despite an agreement to deploy a UN-funded peacekeeping operation there. Photograph: Reuters/Opheera McDoom
Photograph: The Irish Times

CHINA: CHINA HAS stepped up efforts to convince the Sudanese government to do more to resolve the crisis in Darfur in the face of hefty international pressure, while holding fast to public declarations that sport and politics cannot be mixed, and that China will not interfere with the domestic politics of another country.

Director Steven Spielberg's decision this month to quit as artistic adviser to the Beijing Olympics in August sparked anger in China, who accused him of politicising the games and played down the impact his decision would have on the staging of the event.

However, Spielberg's move prompted an international debate on China's role in Darfur and the Beijing government has responded with a publicity campaign aimed at showing that it is working to end the violence in the southern Sudanese region.

A senior Chinese official said China was "actively devoted" to pushing for a breakthrough in negotiations among the parties and working with the international community to smooth the deployment of a UN-African Union force in the region.

"China has already announced five to six batches of substantive humanitarian aid to the Darfur region, and China has also promised to send 321 peacekeeping soldiers to the area," Du Qiwen, vice-minister of the central foreign affairs office of the Chinese Communist Party, told an EU think-tank in Brussels.

Meanwhile, Liu Guijin, the Chinese government's special representative for Darfur, said China planned to provide more humanitarian assistance to the people of Darfur. "Our government is preparing a new budget and more humanitarian assistance will be forced forward," Mr Liu said at a ceremony to hand over an aid package of €18 million.

"We just want to send signals to Sudan and the outside world that the Chinese people and their government are sympathetic with the people there in Darfur.

China is showing solidarity to the Sudanese unity government in its efforts to help people in Darfur," he told the Xinhua news agency.

China reiterated its position that the Beijing Olympics, which are supposed to showcase China's opening up policy of the last 30 years, should not become politicised after Burmese opposition group 88 Generation Students called for a boycott in protest against what it called China's "bankrolling" of Burma's military government that crushed pro-democracy protests last year.

"It should not be politicised. Political excuses should not be used to meddle in it," said foreign ministry spokesman Liu Jianchao.

The situation in Darfur was on the agenda during a visit by US secretary of state Condoleezza Rice, when she discussed stopping the violence in Darfur during talks with foreign minister Yang Jiechi, although the main goal of her visit to China was to help resolve stalled developments in North Korea.

British foreign secretary David Miliband, visiting China, said Beijing's recent diplomatic overtures to help end fighting in war-torn Darfur were significant.

© 2008 The Irish Times

This article appears in the print edition of the Irish Times