Four stories:
By Edward Cody of the "Washington Post"...
The Chinese military put on a display of its first Darfur-bound peacekeepers [on] Saturday, having troops throw up Bailey bridges and feign combat [in order] to dramatize Beijing's desire to be seen as a partner in bringing peace to the violence-torn corner of Sudan.
The training demonstration, by an engineering unit of the People's Liberation Army, was observed by foreign journalists as part of a new campaign by the Chinese government to show that it is cooperating with the United States and other nations to end the Darfur fighting, which since 2003 has displaced about 2.5 million people and contributed to the deaths of as many as 450,000 from violence and disease.
Military engineers wearing U.N.-blue caps worked feverishly to build a stretch of road, erect a bridge, and put together a prefab shelter designed to serve as a headquarters building. Force-protection troops, meanwhile, simulated reacting to an ambush and sped about the training grounds here [Qinyang] in armored personnel carriers in what an army announcer called "a military-training show."
In another facet of China's initiative, its special diplomatic envoy for Darfur, Liu Guijin, repeatedly has sought in Washington and at the United Nations to broadcast China's role in persuading the Sudanese government to drop its opposition to a full U.N. peacekeeping force. After long delays caused by hesitations in Khartoum, the Security Council decided in late July to dispatch to Darfur a 26,000-member force -- the largest peacekeeping unit in the world -- and deployment is scheduled to begin by the end of the year. Since then, several nations have redoubled their efforts to get peace negotiations [under way].
"On the resolution of the Darfur issue, we have played a very constructive and even [a] unique role," Liu said to reporters this week at U.N. headquarters in New York.
China's previous unwillingness to be seen pressuring the Sudanese government had generated appeals for a boycott of the 2008 Beijing Olympics [sic], endangering what the Communist Party government hopes will be a showcase at home and abroad for the country's swift economic transformation. With Olympic enthusiasm high among the Chinese public, anything that casts a shadow over the Games would become a political problem for President Hu Jintao and the party.
Several U.S. entertainment figures, including Mia Farrow and Steven Spielberg, raised the idea of a boycott earlier this year [sic]. Joining the chorus, 108 members of the U.S. House of Representatives wrote a letter to the Chinese government in May, warning that the Beijing Games could be spoiled, unless China became more actively involved in stopping the violence in Sudan.
It is unclear to what degree the Security Council's decision and Sudan's willingness to accept the U.N. force have dissipated the threat of an Olympic boycott [sic]. Spielberg, for instance, had threatened to back out of his role as artistic adviser for the opening ceremony; his spokesman did not respond to a question whether the threat still stands.
China has become Sudan's largest oil customer in recent years, and has signed large-scale oil-exploration deals with the government in Khartoum. In addition, it has sold weapons to the Sudanese military. In that light, China's critics argue that it should be doing more [in order] to make sure [that] the Darfur conflict is resolved, and [that] the region's dire humanitarian situation is tended to. The Bush administration, while lauding China for trying to help, had complained repeatedly that Beijing's diplomats were not using their full influence to push Sudan.
The training exercises, at this base in Henan province 400 miles south of Beijing, involved a 315-man force of military engineers who are scheduled to deploy to Darfur early next month. Their mission, officers said, is to lay groundwork for the full U.N. peacekeeping force by building roads, bridges, and landing strips.
Senior Col. Dai Shaoan of the Defense Ministry's peacekeeping-affairs bureau said [that] the Chinese force will include several construction units, a force-protection unit, and a medical unit. China has not yet decided whether to contribute combat troops to the full U.N. force, he said, but will "study positively any request from the United Nations."
The engineering force will take 145 vehicles, including armored personnel carriers, bulldozers, and trucks, he said. It is made up entirely of volunteer officers and enlisted men who will serve eight-month rotations in Darfur, he added.
"They are all the top troops from their former units," Dai said.
Lt. Col. Shangguan Linhong, who will command the first rotation, said [that] his men, in addition to military training, have studied the origins of the Darfur conflict, and the geography and customs of the area where they will be deployed. Although the region is overwhelmingly Muslim, Dai said [that] the Chinese military has not sought out Muslim troops for this peacekeeping unit or others in Muslim areas.
China, which avoided contributing to U.N. peacekeeping missions until 1990, has sent more than 8,000 soldiers abroad since then. The Defense Ministry said [that] 1,648 Chinese soldiers are serving in U.N. peacekeeping forces now, including those in Lebanon, Liberia, and [DR] Congo.
Dai, sweating in the Chinese military's new olive-green uniform as he answered reporters' questions, deflected queries about the criticism directed at China and the threats of an Olympic boycott. "If you and I are friends, and I have problems with my brothers and sisters, nobody can blame you for that," he said.
From Reuters (also here)...
China on Saturday showed off the readiness of its first engineering troops set to go to Sudan's Darfur region to support a U.N. peacekeeping mission, deflecting criticism of its stance towards the conflict there.
In a rare opening of the doors of one of its bases to foreign journalists, the People's Liberation Army displayed the skills of the 315-strong engineering unit that will start being deployed to the region early next month.
After a brief news conference inside the unit's dusty training base in central Henan province, the troops rushed, chanting, to simulate setting up a bridge, building a road, and providing first aid to the injured -- some of the core activities of their mission.
They will go to Darfur ahead of the expected deployment of 26,000 United Nations and African Union troops and police approved by the U.N. Security Council in July.
"The reason for us to send peacekeeping troops is not to change the way that the West looks at us," Dai Shaoan, Deputy Director-General of the Defence Ministry's Office of Peacekeeping Affairs, told reporters inside the base, situated outside the city of Qinyang.
"We want to make our own contribution to the maintenance of world peace."
International experts estimate that some 200,000 people have died and 2.5 million have been driven from their homes during 4-1/2 years of fighting in Darfur. Sudan puts the death toll from the conflict at just 9,000.
Rights groups have accused China, which has large investments in the Sudanese oil industry, of selling Khartoum arms used in Darfur, and of watering down U.N. Security Council resolutions against Sudan.
"THIN LOGIC"
Dai said that blaming China for the problems in Darfur because of China's relationship with Sudan was based on "very thin logic".
"For example, if you and I have a very good relationship, it's not right for me to blame you or place responsibility on you, if my own siblings are having disagreements or problems amongst themselves," he said.
Shangguan Linhong, commander of the engineering unit, beamed with pride about the preparations [that] his men had endured -- besides the requisite physical training and basic English study, they had to do so wearing many layers of clothing to simulate the heat [that] they will experience in Darfur, he said.
China has sent close to 8,100 military personnel on 17 U.N. peacekeeping missions since 1990; the defence ministry said in a statement that nearly 1,650 Chinese officers and troops were currently serving in U.N. missions, including in the Democratic Republic of Congo, Liberia, Lebanon, and southern Sudan.
Dai said that China would take a "positive attitude" towards any request by the U.N. that it follow up on the engineering unit by sending peacekeeping troops to Darfur.
For now, the engineering unit was geared up to serve in a supporting role by building barracks, roads, and helipads.
Asked how he felt about going to Darfur to build infrastructure that could easily end up being destroyed in the conflict, Zhao Huafeng, one of the unit's troops, said: "I'm sure [that] we'll be able to build them again."
From the AP...
China will deploy engineers and a medical unit to Sudan's troubled Darfur region next month, as part of a United Nations peacekeeping mission, the military reported.
The peacekeeping unit of 315 people will include three engineer platoons, one well digging platoon, and one field hospital, the official Xinhua News Agency reported late [on] Saturday, quoting Dai Shao'an, vice director of the Defense Ministry's office of peacekeeping affairs.
It said [that] they would be deployed to build roads and bridges and [to] dig wells in advance of the larger 26,000-strong African Union-U.N. peacekeeping force for Darfur that was approved by the U.N.'s Security Council on July 31 and [that] will likely start deploying early next year.
The announcement comes amid efforts by Beijing to counter criticism that it is reluctant to support international intervention in Darfur, where a four-year-old conflict between rebels and government-backed militias has killed 200,000 people and left 2.5 million homeless.
Energy-hungry China buys two-thirds of Sudan's oil output, and sells weapons to the Khartoum regime. Critics say [that] Beijing has not used its economic leverage to push Sudan's government more strongly for peace in Darfur, and have attempted to shame China into acting, by linking the Darfur crisis to next year's Summer Olympics in the Chinese capital.
Xinhua said [that] the unit headed to Darfur has been trained in international law, the United Nations constitution, and the English language.
Last week, China's special envoy for Darfur, Liu Guijin, offered to act as a go-between in new peace negotiations to end the conflict. Liu said [that] China has no contact with the rebels, but will "definitely" keep using its influence with the government.
From AFP...
On one shoulder, Lt. Liu Jinzhao has a sky-blue UN patch signifying membership in a Chinese peacekeeping unit destined for Darfur. On the other shoulder, there is a rather large chip.
"Those who say [that] China is making the situation in Darfur worse are one-sided in their view, and we will prove them wrong," said Liu, a blue UN beret hanging off the side of his head.
"We will show that China can contribute."
Liu spoke on Saturday as his comrades in a 315-member engineering unit shipping out next month went through their paces for foreign reporters in China's latest attempt to play down accusations [that] it is worsening Darfur's agony by supporting the Khartoum regime.
The unit will build bridges and roads, dig wells, and perform other tasks, and they showed [that] they mean business at a military-training facility in central Henan province.
Under a glaring sun, the unit's bulldozers turned a churned-up stretch of ground into a smooth road in minutes, and 50 soldiers used their bare hands to move a 40-metre stretch of steel bridge into place over a ditch in seconds.
Elsewhere, another squad needed only a few moments to put a roof on an aluminum hut with "UN" emblazoned on its side, while others pummelled unseen enemies with martial-arts moves in a snarling show of force.
The carefully choreographed display resembled a three-ring circus, but the message was clear: China won't be cast as the villain.
"We will naturally face difficulties and challenges," Colonel Dai Shao'an told reporters. "But we are good at hardship, at fighting, and at making contributions."
A true Chinese change of heart would be welcomed by critics.
The Khartoum regime is blamed for backing militias that have waged a brutal campaign in rebel areas of Darfur which the UN says has led to more than 200,000 deaths in the past four years. The US has termed it genocide.
China, which is the biggest buyer of Sudan's oil, is accused of shielding Khartoum from international action, and some foreign activists have warned the situation will tarnish next year's Beijing Olympics.
But as the pressure has mounted, China recently played a role in getting Khartoum to sign off, after years of foreign pressure, on a new UN-African Union peacekeeping force to be deployed next year.
Yet China needs to do far more, says Jill Savitt, director of US-based pressure group [Olympic] Dream for Darfur.
"China is not yet doing enough. We have to remember that China played an obstructionist role for four long years," she told AFP.
Savitt said [that] China must contribute real combat troops, halt arms sales to Khartoum, and threaten consequences, if Sudan President Omar El-Bashir backslides.
"China is continuing to underwrite the regime's ability to wage genocide," she said.
Lt. Li Xinying bristles at such suggestions, using the halting English that has been part of his unit's training for the Darfur mission.
"No Western countries should put the blame on China. We are not responsible for the actions of the Sudan government," he said.
Li and his comrades are among a growing number of Chinese troops being sent abroad.
China says [that] it has dispatched over 8,000 troops on such missions since 1990, and currently has over 1,400 in four hotspots worldwide.
This, plus China's apparent willingness to read the political winds on Darfur is "good for China and good for the world" said Prof. David Zweig, a China foreign-policy expert at the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology.
But he notes: "They have changed their stance, but are not going to harm their (Sudanese) oil supply. They know that if they push too hard, Khartoum could just say 'bug off'."
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