[Yuriko Koike] A wayward China in Africa

TOKYO ― As Libya’s National Transitional Council attempts to establish a functioning government for a newly liberated country, the truth about what went on under Col. Muammar el-Gadhafi’s regime is starting to come to light. Various treasures have been unearthed from Tripoli mansions that were hastily vacated by their owners, and what happened to the tortured, the murdered and the missing is beginning to be revealed.

So, too, are some of Gadhafi’s dirtiest diplomatic secrets being exposed. On Sept. 2, the Canadian newspaper the Globe and Mail reported on recent negotiations between the embattled Gadhafi regime and Chinese armaments companies with direct ties to China’s government for contracts worth $200 million.

Such contracts were in flagrant violation of the arms embargo instituted under U.N. Security Council Resolution 1970, which China approved. China’s rulers have denied that the secret arms deals were valid, and insist that the government did not authorize them. But a travel report explicitly states that Gadhafi’s security officials met with three Chinese arms manufacturers: China North Industries Corp. (Norinco), the China National Precision Machinery Import & Export Corp. (CPMIC), and China XinXing Import & Export Corp. The agenda included not only these companies’ available weapons stockpiles, but also the Chinese firms’ promise to provide additional weapons if required.

Gadhafi’s turn to China in his hour of desperation is somewhat surprising. After all, he reacted to China’s growing activities in Africa ― which his officials maintained was “reminiscent of imperialism” ― by receiving an official visit in 2006 from Taiwan’s then-President Chen Shui-bian. As the pressure from the rebels grew, Gadhafi’s last hope for maintaining power became China, and so fear of its influence in Africa was brushed aside.

For decades, Gadhafi had behaved as if he were, as his propagandists proclaimed him, “King among African Kings,” using his country’s abundant oil revenues to provide aid to his neighbors. He announced investments of $97 billion to “free Africa from the West.” President Compaor of Burkina Faso (initially rumored to be a likely destination for Gadhafi’s exile) received military training from Libya in the 1980s before rising to power in a coup d’tat. President Idriss Dby of Chad also brought about political change in 1990 with Gadhafi’s backing. Niger’s President Mahamadou Issoufou, who is now harboring Gadhafi’s third son, Saadi, was able to win his country’s presidential election last March thanks to financial support from Gadhafi.

But, in recent years, China became an obstacle to Gadhafi’s African ambitions, and China did so by copying his methods: buying the support of dictators with weaponry and finance. Since 2000, China has actively courted Africa’s unstable and dictatorial countries with offers of aid and a refusal to back U.N. sanctions against them. Indeed, China has blithely entered into business with African countries that Europe and America refuse to engage with, owing to sanctions.

International sanctions, it now seems, were the door through which China rushed to gain access to Africa’s mineral wealth for its voracious industries. For example, instead of making an effort to foster peace in Sudan, as a permanent, veto-wielding member of the U.N. Security Council should, China’s deep involvement with Sudan, through the provision of oil infrastructure and weapons, actually prolonged the Darfur conflict. A letter to Chinese officials, signed by many members of the U.S. Congress, and a report by Amnesty International state that China exported weapons to Sudan in violation of U.N. resolutions. The Oscar-winning film director Steven Spielberg embarrassed China by resigning from an advisory post for the 2008 Beijing Olympics because of its support for the government in Khartoum, calling the Chinese games the “genocide Olympics.”

As Gadhafi fought his opponents this summer, 10 states in southern Sudan broke away, claiming independence as the 54th country on the African continent. Roughly 80 percent of Sudan’s oil production of 490,000 barrels per day is concentrated in South Sudan. In 2010, China imported almost half of this output, roughly 250,000 barrels per day, which accounts for about 5 percent of China’s oil imports. Given its support for the brutal national government in Khartoum, China is now desperately trying to repair relations with South Sudan, so that it can continue to exploit the new country’s oil reserves.

Like Sudan, Angola, Africa’s second largest oil producer, has experienced continued conflict for decades. It was subject to U.N. sanctions until 2002. Yet, during the years of Angola’s pariah status, China provided large-scale infrastructure finance in return for oil. Today, China is the second biggest destination for Angolan oil (the U.S., which jumped on the bandwagon after sanctions were lifted, is the largest). Indeed, Angola produces more oil for China than Saudi Arabia does, and, at times, as many as 100,000 Chinese workers have been working on Angolan infrastructure projects.

China has chosen a high-risk path ― ignoring human rights and violating U.N. sanctions ― to secure the energy and other resources needed to sustain its economy’s rapid growth. It is a choice that neither befits one of the permanent members of the Security Council, nor demonstrates China’s readiness to be a responsible stakeholder in the international community.

China’s willingness to arm and defend African dictators, even in the teeth of U.N. sanctions, as in Libya, undermines its claim to a “peaceful rise.” Given China’s Libyan duplicity, the world should now determine whether it is a country that obeys international rules only when doing so suits its interests.

By Yuriko Koike

Yuriko Koike, Japan’s former minister of defense and national security adviser, is chair of the Executive Council of the Liberal Democratic Party. ― Ed.

(Project Syndicate)