Summary of China's oil interest in Sudan
What do we do about China? China is truly the west's next major competitor on the world stage--and China is investing now to shape a very different future from one we would want.
At the center of China's program to shape the next world, China is securing oil sources for the next decade. China is making a strong push into the middle east and Africa, as well as south Asia. Sudan provides China's oil exploration and oil services base in Africa, and the Sudanse oil fields are China's only major international discovery and production success to date.
The reason that the very shaky government of Sudan can perpetrate a genocide despite strong international condemnation is that it is so uncritically supported by China. More to the point, China is actively courting middle east and African oil producing nations, becoming the preferred partner to authoritarians and Islamists who are fearful of the United States. The result is an emerging bloc of nations sharing authoritarian values combined with market capitalism. These nations are becoming the core of a rapidly evolving economic and diplomatic ecosystem whose sphere of influence that quietly but strongly rivals that of the US.
Here are some helpful links:
Oil field concessions map for Sudan
China's oil strategy described, from the Daily Star, Lebanon.
Excerpts from a classic summary that is no longer available from Newsday.
Finally, here is a current (and perhaps overly sympathetic to China) overview of the diplomatic dance China is carrying out in the UN at the moment , from Michael Richardson in Singapore.
Sudan: Tricky balancing act for China
By Michael Richardson
SUDAN is best known to the outside world for civil conflict that has created mayhem, most recently in the western region of Darfur. But Africa's largest country is also a significant oil producer and this has put China and the United States at odds over how to handle Sudan. The issue underlines China's growing thirst for imported oil from the Middle East and Africa.
The United Nations Security Council recently adopted a resolution threatening possible sanctions against Sudan. It also established a UN commission of inquiry to investigate human rights abuses in Darfur and to determine whether the Sudanese authorities and militias are responsible for alleged genocide there.
The US-drafted resolution passed in the 15-nation council on Sept 18 by a vote of 11-0, with China, Russia, Algeria and Pakistan abstaining. However it was adopted only after the US agreed, at China's insistence, to soften language that explicitly threatened sanctions against the country's oil industry and Sudanese officials if Khartoum fails to comply.
VITAL ENERGY SOURCE
THE major foreign oil players in Sudan are the China National Petroleum Corporation (CNPC) and its state-controlled counterparts from India and Malaysia, ONGC Videsh and Petronas. They provided much of the investment needed to build a 1,240km oil pipeline from the centre of southern Sudan to an export terminal on the Red Sea.
China's Ministry of Commerce forecast recently that the country's crude oil imports will reach a record 110 million tonnes this year, 21 per cent more than last year. In the first five months of this year, China's oil imports accounted for 42 per cent of its total oil consumption, up from 35 per cent for the same period last year. About half of these vital energy supplies are from the Middle East and 25 per cent from Africa. Sudan is not yet a mainstay supplier to China.
Of the 2.4 million barrels per day (bpd) that China imported in April, only 71,000 bpd came from Sudan. But Africa's largest country is already an important energy source for China and seems set to become more so as Chinese oil production and exploration expand in Sudan.
Moreover, Sudanese oil is easier, and therefore less expensive, for Chinese refineries to process than heavier grades of Middle East oil with relatively high sulphur content.
Foreign development of Sudan's energy resources has been controversial since large quantities of oil began to be exported through the pipeline in 1999. As Western oil firms retreated under pressure from their governments and human rights activists, the Asian companies moved in.
First, there was a long civil war between government forces and rebels in the mainly non-Muslim, non-Arab south of Sudan. Now the focus of international concern is on Darfur. Last February, two groups started an armed rebellion against the government in Khartoum, citing discrimination against the region's black African tribes. In response, the government recruited and organised Arab militias, known as Janjaweed.
It reportedly supported them as they killed tens of thousands of villagers and drove more than 1.2 million people from their homes. Some US officials, foreign human rights groups and aid organisations accuse the Sudanese government of using oil revenues to buy arms from China and elsewhere to crush its opponents and unleash widespread abuses. Oil now provides over 70 per cent of Sudan's total export earnings.
The UN Security Council vote followed a declaration by US Secretary of State Colin Powell that Sudan and government-backed militia in Darfur had committed genocide. Critics of America's position have said it is designed to attract African-American, Christian and Jewish votes for the Bush administration in next month's presidential and congressional elections.
The US draft resolution threatening sanctions against the Sudanese government and oil industry for non-compliance was opposed not only by China but also by Russia and the council's Islamic states, Pakistan and Algeria. They argued that the threat of sanctions was unwarranted in the light of the conclusion by UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan that Sudan had 'made progress' in resolving the crisis.
China, one of the five permanent members of the council, threatened to cast its veto until the US agreed to water down the language in the draft resolution it had circulated.
Sudan's estimated oil reserves have doubled since 2001. Output reached 345,000 bpd in June and the country's energy minister has predicted it will rise to 500,000 bpd by next year. According to officials in Khartoum, the central and south-central regions that account for nearly all the current oil output represent only 15 per cent of Sudan's oil reserves.
DIFFICULT DAYS AHEAD?
MEANWHILE, other promising areas are being offered for exploration. The US has imposed bilateral economic sanctions on Sudan since November 1997. They ban trade between the two countries as well as investment in Sudan by US business, including oil companies. But the US sanctions have so far excluded China's CNPC and its partners from Malaysia and India.
That may change if the situation in Darfur gets worse. On a recent visit to the region, US Senator Sam Brownback charged that by continuing to produce oil in Sudan, China was funding the military build-up by Khartoum and the arming of the pro-government militia in Darfur.
Beijing faces a difficult balancing act between preserving its energy position in Sudan and its international respectability, especially since the African Union demanded in early July that Sudan arrest and prosecute the militia groups.
China's UN Ambassador Wang Guangya said that although the council resolution was not a good one, he refrained from vetoing it because his government supported some of the text, including a provision that backed an African Union initiative to send tens of thousands of additional troops to Darfur to monitor a ceasefire between Khartoum and the rebels.
'As far as China is concerned, we don't like the idea of sanctions,' Mr Wang said. 'But I think that we don't want to throw the baby out with the bath-water.'
# The writer is a visiting senior research fellow at the Institute of South-east Asian Studies in Singapore.
Comments