Instability in the Middle East and North Africa has put pressure on China’s non-interference principle, pushing it into more pragmatic territory

Beijing signalled the biggest change in its Africa policy when it decided to accept the National Transitional Council as a negotiating partner in the peace talks between Colonel Moammar el Gadaffi and Libya’s rebel groups. China had been reluctant to give a new rebel group in Africa the time of day, worried that North American or European leaders would adopt a similar stance toward the Dalai Lama, Uyghur separatists in western China or a Taiwanese president – all players in disputes that China considers its internal affairs.

China’s diplomats and generals oppose the idea of regime change and international intervention, even on human-rights grounds. Yet China’s rhetoric of brotherhood is premised on its aid to African liberation movements that resisted European colonial control. At a China-Africa summit in 2009, Libyan Foreign Minister Musa Kusa (now a defector) thanked China for its support for ‘the African liberation movement’. The foreshadowing was presumably unintended.

Gadaffi’s government has long had a prickly relationship with China. Much more of Libya’s oil went to Europe than to China. Backed by oil revenues, the Libyan government did not need to temper its criticism of Chinese activities across the continent. In 2009, Musa Kusa blamed China for not taking firm political positions on issues of international importance and for abandoning its allies in international forums like the United Nations. Tripoli also blocked potential Chinese takeovers when it suited its interests to do so.

Now, talks between the rebels and Beijing have picked up quickly. On 22 June, Chinese Foreign Minister Yang Jiechi met Mustapha Abdul Jalil of Libya’s National Transitional Council. Yang called the NTC ‘an important dialogue partner’ for the resolution of the Libyan crisis. This follows moves by Israel and Russia to make contact with the rebel leaders.

China’s Ambassador to Qatar, Zhang Zhiliang, held discussions with Jalil on 2 June to discuss the situation in Libya. Despite its entry into the debate on Libya’s future, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs did not suggest the terms of the conflict’s resolution, saying that it should be resolved through political means, representing the will of the people. Days later, on 6 June, Li Lianhe, a Chinese diplomat based in Cairo, went to visit the rebel stronghold of Benghazi. His official mission was to evaluate the humanitarian situation there and to inspect the status of Chinese projects in rebel-held areas.

On 6 July, Chen Xiaodong, Director General of the West Asian and North African Affairs Department, was the next to visit NTC offices in Benghazi. Chen had earlier invited the Libyan opposition to China ‘in the near future’ and promised to increase humanitarian aid to the country. Beijing has already sent US$1 million to Egypt and $2 mn. to Tunisia to help with the influx of refugees from Libya.

Let the others go first
Beijing’s support for a political solution lacks direction. While its diplomats say that the Chinese approach is different because it is constructive and pragmatic, it has only suggested that the government in Tripoli accept international attempts at mediation. The African Union, Russia and South Africa have failed as mediators, so Beijing is wary of taking anything more than a discreet role. China backed South Africa’s and the African Union’s efforts to foster dialogue. At the United Nations in mid-June, Chinese Deputy Foreign Affairs Minister Zhai Jun said that ‘military force cannot fix the problem in Libya’, and while hosting Libyan Foreign Minister Abdelati el Obeidi in June, Beijing said that an immediate ceasefire was the only solution.

Foreign Minister Yang said that the NTC increasingly represented the Libyan people and that is what made them an acceptable negotiating partner. However, he has turned the rhetoric of China’s engagement on its head. Beijing has portrayed its growing economic and political ties with African countries as a ‘win-win’ partnership. Yang said that ‘China has no interest to seek any gain on the Libya issue’, but the negotiations included an agreement that the NTC would respect and protect Chinese personnel and economic assets in regions controlled by the insurgents.

After China abstained on United Nations Security Council Resolution 1973, the People’s Daily, the Chinese Communist Party’s newspaper, was one of the most vocal critics of the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation’s bombing campaign. It argued that ‘some’ countries were engaging in a third attack on a sovereign country. For domestic audiences, the CCP sought to portray the campaign against the Gadaffi regime at the UN as a machination to prolong the hegemony of the United States and to counter nascent calls for the Chinese population to follow the example of the popular uprisings across North Africa and the Middle East.

China’s abstention from the crucial UN vote was a balancing act which sought to placate sentiment from the African and Arab world and at the same time oppose interference in the internal affairs of other countries, while still protecting its economic interests. Prior to the vote on the resolution, Gadaffi’s government had told Russia, India and China that their companies could pick up the slack left by the European and North American companies which would no longer be welcome under the new paradigm.

Thought to represent the sovereignty group with Russia, China has not been as vocal as Moscow and has been left behind since Russia decided to abandon Gadaffi and attempt a mediatory role after the May G-8 meetings in Deauville, France. After the French government announced that it had been financing and arming the anti-Gadaffi rebels in the Nafusa Mountains, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov criticised what he called a crude violation of Resolution 1973. France argues that the arms drops do not violate the embargo because the resolution allows for any measures to protect civilian populations from attack. China called on all countries to respect the spirit of the UN resolutions without criticising France directly. If China’s public statements are judged on a superficial level, it would appear that its calls for a ceasefire are unrealistic because the United States, France and Britain made evident their desire for regime change from the start.

India, a current non-permanent Security Council member, also abstained from the vote, citing a lack of sound information about the situation on the ground. Foreign Minister S.M. Krishna condemned the military action in March, but New Delhi has made few public statements on the matter since then.

In a communique from its summit in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, in late May, the India-Africa Forum backed the AU position that dialogue is required to resolve the conflict. The Beghazi-based rebels say that Gadaffi stepping down is the prerequisite for dialogue. The governing Indian National Congress prides itself on its Non-Aligned Movement history; India’s Ambassador to the UN, Hardeep Singh Puri, announced without much fanfare that it would donate $1 mn. in humanitarian assistance to Benghazi and Tripoli on 9 June.

Japan, meanwhile, sided more strongly with its NATO allies. In early June, sources at the Finance Ministry in Tokyo said it had frozen more than $4 billion in Libyan assets pursuant to the relevant UN Security Council resolutions.

China also produced a muted response to the International Criminal Court’s arrest warrant for Gadaffi, his son Seif el Islam el Gadaffi and intelligence chief Abdullah el Senussi on charges of crimes against humanity. ICC Chief Prosecutor Luis Moreno Ocampo issued the warrants on 27 June. Chinese diplomats urged prudence and objectivity on the part of the ICC while arguing that it should focus on activities that strengthen peace and stability. The Ministry of Foreign Affairs did not condemn the ICC’s move as strongly as the warrant for Sudanese President Omer Hassan Ahmed el Beshir. Sudan is a much more important supplier of oil to China than Libya; while the warrant for Gadaffi was being readied, Omer was preparing a state visit to Chinese President Hu Jintao.

On 26 February, China voted in support of UN Security Council Resolution 1970, which referred the Libya case to the ICC. China’s UN representatives voiced concern about the loss of civilian life and were ultimately persuaded to allow Resolution 1970 to pass in order to address ‘gross and systematic violation of human rights, including the repression of peaceful demonstrators’. It was the first time China had backed asset freezes and sanctions against a regime on human rights grounds. In December 2010, it had abstained from Resolution 1593 that referred the crisis in Darfur to the ICC. Earlier, Libya and China had jointly attempted to delay the Omer indictment by pushing for a reference to the Rome Statute’s Article 16 to be included in a Security Council resolution on the UN-AU hybrid force in Darfur.

Source: www.africa-asia-confidential.com