WHAT A PORKER Wei Chao-bing shows off his divine pig, which won the championship medal in a contest organized by a temple in Dasi Township, Taoyuan County, yesterday. The pig weighs approximately 864kg. PHOTO: CHOU MIN-HUNG, TAIPEI TIMES

Bush acknowledges Kosovo is an independent nation

AGENCIES, BERLIN AND WASHINGTON
Tuesday, Feb 19, 2008, Page 1

　

US President George W. Bush yesterday acknowledged that the people of Kosovo were independent, though he stopped short of a formal recognition of the territory's independence.

"We'll watch to see how the events unfold today," Bush said in a live interview aired on NBC television from Arusha, Tanzania. "The Kosovoans [sic] are now independent. It's something I've advocated along with my government."

The breakaway majority Albanian territory declared independence from Serbia on Sunday. Bush was in Tanzania as part of a tour of Africa.

Meanwhile, German Chancellor Angela Merkel yesterday said Berlin will not take an immediate decision on recognizing Kosovo's independence but wait for the EU to spell out its position.

"We will not take a decision today on recognizing Kosovo's independence. Ministers from the EU will meet today to put in place a platform that will allow each member to take a position on the declaration of independence," she told reporters in Berlin. "So taking a decision on recognition is not on the order of the day. The order of the day is first of all to answers questions of substance as to the EU's platform."

Germany had been expected to formally recognize Kosovo yesterday along with Britain, France, Italy and the US.

Merkel's announcement came as EU foreign ministers held a crisis meeting in Brussels amid signs of behind-the-scenes wrangling over recognition of the new state.

Kosovo shows Taiwan the way, Su Tseng-chang says
　

By Ko Shu-ling and Jenny W. Hsu
STAFF REPORTERS
Tuesday, Feb 19, 2008, Page 3

Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) vice presidential candidate Su Tseng-chang (蘇貞昌) yesterday congratulated Kosovo on its declaration of independence, saying that Taiwan hoped to follow Kosovo along the same path.

"It took a long time to build the ship of democracy in Taiwan. We cannot sail it to somebody else's harbor," he said.

Su said it took generations to make direct presidential elections a reality in Taiwan.

Kosovo has about 2 million people who are determined to be their own masters and build a new nation, while Taiwan has 23 million people and has a solid democratic foundation, he said.

Although the DPP suffered heavy losses in the legislative elections on Jan. 12, Su said the presidential election on March 22 would be the last line of defense for Taiwan's sovereignty.

The public must elect a candidate who is capable, loves Taiwan and is determined to protect the country's sovereignty, he said.

"We are calling on voters to help preserve democratic politics and the fundamental value of checks and balances," he said.

Su made the remarks while visiting a temple in Chiayi County yesterday morning.

Kosovo declared independence on Sunday in a historic bid for statehood in defiance of Serbian and Russian opposition.

The Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MOFA) yesterday also congratulated Kosovo on its independence and said Taiwan looks forward to fostering ties with any country that upholds the universal values of democracy, freedom and peace.

In an official press release, MOFA touted Kosovars and said self-determination was a right recognized by the UN and that the people should be the masters of their nation's fate.

In no way should the independence of one nation be denied by another, it said.

Despite a multitude of barriers, the release said, the people of Kosovo have insisted on an ideal they believe in, which is to peacefully pursue independence without being threatened or scared away.

China reacted angrily on Monday to MOFA's statement, saying Taiwan had no right to offer an opinion on the subject.

"It is known to all that as a part of China, Taiwan has no right or eligibility to give any so-called `recognition' [to Kosovo]," foreign ministry spokesman Liu Jianchao (劉建超) said in a statement.

Taiwan second home for Burkina envoy
　

By Jenny W. Hsu
STAFF REPORTER
Tuesday, Feb 19, 2008, Page 3
　

Describing his youngest son as the "best souvenir" from his time in Taiwan, mathematician, engineer and Burkina Faso's ambassador to Taiwan Jacques Sawadogo said that Taiwan has become a second home to him and his family.

With his trademark big smile and hearty laugh, Sawadogo talked about his 12-year-old son, who was born in Taipei, with pride in his eyes.

"When we watch television, my son is our best translator. He can even speak Taiwanese," the ambassador said.

The problem with his "half-Taiwanese" son, he joked, is that the family has to pack a suitcase-full of Taiwanese food whenever they go on their annual month-long vacation.

Sawadogo is the first and so far only ambassador to Taiwan from Burkina Faso since the two countries established official ties in July 1994.

A respected mathematician and engineer in his home country, Sawadogo's seniority in local ambassadorial circles has made him the dean of the diplomatic corps in Taiwan.

Burkina Faso, formerly called the Republic of Upper Volta, is a land-locked west African country of 13 million people.

None of Burkina Faso's six neighbors recognizes Taiwan. It is one of the remaining four African countries that still recognize Taiwan after Malawi switched diplomatic ties to Beijing in late December.

Sawadogo came to Taiwan in 1994 as head of Burkina's Ministry of Economic Planning, tasked by President Blaise Compaore with opening the embassy.

"I came to Taiwan two days after the two countries established relations 13 years ago. It was a great honor for me to come back here as ambassador for my government," he said.

One of the many good things about Taiwan, the ambassador said, is the kindness and warmth of the Taiwanese people.

He recounted an incident that occurred just after they first arrived, when a Taiwanese man brought Sawadogo's wife all the way back to the embassy's office after she got lost in Taipei while out shopping.

"My wife recognized the office building when they got close. She told him that she knew how to get back, but he insisted on taking her all way to the office. The kindness that man showed was a wonderful way for us to start our life in Taiwan," Sawadogo said.

In addition to the hospitality of the people, the quality of Taiwan's healthcare system, education, use of advanced technology and democracy are truly praiseworthy, he said, adding that the UN was being unfair in alienating Taiwan from the international body.

The people of Burkina are very grateful for the assistance that Taiwan has rendered over the past decade and a half, and Ougadougou is deeply committed in its support for Taiwan's bid to enter various international organizations such as the UN and the WHO, he said.

The ambassador touted last September's Taiwan-Africa Summit in Taipei as an effective tool to foster relationships between Taiwan and its African allies as well as polish Taiwan's image on the continent.

Taiwan can also boost its clout and generate more support in Africa by expanding its humanitarian work in the region, Sawadogo said, recalling a moving experience a few years ago when he met two female Taiwanese volunteers in rural Burkina who spoke the village dialect perfectly.

"Non-governmental organizations are very important in Taiwan's foreign relations, because the help goes directly to the people," he said.

Once people develop sympathy for Taiwan's plight, "they will push their governments" to recognize Taiwan, Sawadogo said.

Another way for Taiwan to rally more African support is by wooing businessmen and investing in the continent.

The ambassador said his country, which is Africa's second-biggest cotton producer and the world's fourth-largest, has an annual production of 800,000 tonnes of cotton.

Burkina Faso grants Taiwanese investors a variety of business incentives, including tax breaks, he said.

China's rise will mean turbulence
　

By Sushil Seth
Tuesday, Feb 19, 2008, Page 8

China seems to be everywhere these days. Apart from Japan which is seeking to counter it with the US alliance, China's geo-political pre-eminence in Asia-Pacific is now well-established.

True, the US is still the dominant military power regionally and globally. But the Asia-Pacific region is quietly accommodating itself to China's new and rising status.

China is not only looming large in its Asian neighborhood, it is also establishing its presence in Africa, the Middle East, Central Asia, South Asia and South America, hunting for resources (oil, gas and raw materials) to fuel its economy, selling its wares, making investments and accumulating political capital.

It has emerged as the US' biggest foreign lender, buying its treasury bonds and securities with its more than US$1 trillion in foreign currency reserves (and rising), amassed, in large part, from the US' growing trade deficit.

In other words, it is lending a good part of what it earns from its US exports back to the US, thus enabling its consumers to continue buying Chinese goods.

China is now in a position to bring down the mighty US dollar by shifting its dollar holdings into other currencies, and create panic in international markets.

In practice, it might not do this for fear of losing heavily on its dollars assets. There is no way it can dispose of its dollar assets quickly enough to escape heavy losses.

Besides, a significant depreciation of the US dollar will affect China's exports into the US market by making them dearer.

But that is another story.

The point is that China's rise is a great challenge for the world, especially the US, as the former has ambitions to overtake the latter as the world's only superpower.

With the US mired in Iraq and elsewhere, China has used its time and resources well to expand its political and economic clout, even right into the US backyard of South America.

One would hope that the US is aware of China's rearguard action. But being already over-stretched, the US is keen to maximize the area of political cooperation on Iran, North Korea and elsewhere.

Washington is, therefore, inclined to overstate the mutuality of interest, and underplay differences and concerns from China.

But this situation is unlikely to last as China becomes even more ambitious and the US starts to clearly see the danger.

China believes it can carve out a new role with new strategies to overcome strife and conflict, both internally and externally. In a Foreign Affairs article, Zheng Bijian (鄭必堅) called these strategies China's "three transcendences."

The first strategy, as he puts it, "is to transcend the old model of industrialization and to advance a new one ? based on technology, economic efficiency, low consumption of natural resources ? low environmental pollution, and the optimal allocation of human resources."

Going by the state of China's environmental degradation, this strategy is apparently not working.

The second strategy "is to transcend the traditional ways for great powers to emerge [like Germany and Japan in the past], as well as the Cold War mentality."

China, on the other hand, "will transcend ideological differences to strive for peace, development and cooperation with all countries of the world."

However, if the grab for islands in the South China Sea (the Spratlys, for instance) is any indication, China is behaving no different from the ways of the old powers (Germany and Japan) by seeking to use a mix of coercive strategies to have its way.

The only difference is that China has been relatively successful so far in not having to use military means.

But as its power grows and it faces resistance to its coercive diplomacy, China will be as ruthless in pushing its way (even including the projection and use of power) as the old powers.

Which is already happening with Taiwan, with hundreds of Chinese missiles targeted in that direction.

The third strategy, according to Zheng, "is to transcend outmoded models of social control and to construct a harmonious socialist society."

Again, going by the reports of recurring unrest in different parts of China, the so-called harmonious society is either sheer propaganda or sheer delusion, which is even more disturbing.

Therefore, all these claims that China has somehow found the Holy Grail of peaceful rise and development are fanciful -- to say the least.

In other words, China's rise is bound to cause turbulence and strife in the years to come, with the US seeking to hold its position as the reigning superpower.

There is, however, a view that China can be accommodated peacefully in the world order, because the existing system has been kind to it as evidenced by its economic growth and growing political status. Therefore, it will have no reason to subvert or sabotage it.

But with China's growing ambitions, it is unlikely to be satisfied with incremental benefits accruing to it from a system that was devised by others to maintain and sustain their supremacy.

Beijing will want to put its own stamp on the system and to maximize its own goals and ambitions of global supremacy.

In a recent Foreign Affairs article, Professor G. John Ikenberry argues: "The United States cannot thwart China's rise, but it can help ensure that China's power is exercised within the rules and institutions that the United States and its [European] partners have crafted over the last century."

He adds, "The United States' global position may be weakening, but the international system the United States leads can remain the dominant order of the twenty-first century."

This is based on two implicit assumptions. First, China will continue to see the existing international order as largely to its advantage.

Second, if it doesn't and seeks radical transformation, it will find the US-European order strong enough, by virtue of its combined power, to deter China from challenging it.

As Ikenberry puts it, "The key thing for US leaders to remember is that it may be possible for China to overtake the US, but it is much less likely that China will ever manage to overtake the Western order."

This is assuming that the Western order will generally act together, which is a tall order to make over any period of time.

If China manages to remain stable and continues to grow? (a big if, considering its multiple problems), it will also have the potential to play power politics with the global system, including between the US and Europe.

The idea that China will play its role within an existing international order crafted and controlled by dominant Western powers seems a bit overdrawn, if not an outright case of wishful thinking.

It would make more sense to treat China as a power keen to reshape the global order by putting itself in the center. China will take this directrion as its power grows.

And this will mean strife and turbulence. And countries like the US and others with high stakes in the existing international order will have no option but to confront the new danger from a resurgent China.

Sushil Seth is a writer based in Australia.

Collateral risk for China

By Jonathan Fenby
THE GUARDIAN, LONDON
Tuesday, Feb 19, 2008, Page 9

`Beijing is not inclined to bow to foreign pressure. Why should it, one may ask, since ... the outside world is still beating a path to its door?'
　

When China won the right to stage the 2008 Olympics, the outburst of joy around the nation was overwhelming.

This was to be a major sign of global recognition for the way in which China has emerged from its Mao-era shell and become a world player over the last 30 years. Now things are looking rather less rosy, with implications that go beyond the sports events of August.

The announcement by Steven Spielberg, that his conscience about the "unspeakable crimes against humanity that continue to be committed in Darfur" would not allow him to go through with directing Beijing's opening ceremony, brings home the collateral damage that China risks from its association with such regimes.

Mia Farrow's warning that Spielberg risked becoming a modern Leni Riefenstahl if he did for Beijing what she did for the 1936 Berlin Olympics seemed overblown. But the director's decision shows China cannot expect people to slot its behavior into neat little boxes, as it does -- one for trade, one for Confucian culture, one for the propagation of reassurances that China's rise is a peaceful one, one for ensuring the flow of raw material to its industry, and one for the defense of national sovereignty.

China has played such a bad hand in Sudan one can only conclude that it is tone deaf when it comes to international politics. Sudan is a useful supplier of energy, but China has other sources. Its own policies in Sinicizing the vast western territory of Xinjiang may be cloaked from the world, but Darfur is out in the open, and its foot-dragging cannot escape criticism -- sharpened by the latest actions of Khartoum.

Some will dismiss Spielberg's decision as grandstanding by a member of the California elite. Others will wonder why he undertook the job in the first place. But even Chinese critics of the regime hold back from advocating a boycott. Engagement remains, for many of them, still the best way to get Beijing to adopt a more liberal path.

But despite recent signs of a more liberal stance, the system remains oppressive toward anything regarded as an organized threat. The plight of Chinese internal critics has largely been abandoned by the West. Trade and investment opportunities have trumped concern for dissidents.

After Spielberg, the focus will be on Sudan, and the question will be how many others will follow him. Nine Nobel Peace Prize laureates have written to the Communist Party leader, Hu Jintao (胡錦濤) , urging him to uphold Olympic ideals by pressing Sudan to stop the atrocities.

On past form, Beijing is not inclined to bow to foreign pressure. Why should it, one may ask, since it has done so well over the last 30 years and the outside world is still beating a path to its door?

With the Olympics neatly slotted into development plans for the Beijing region and foreign governments taking care not to say anything out of place on the human rights front, decisions such as Spielberg's or the letter from the Nobel laureates will be filed away.

Its stance could lead to a toughening of positions outside China, be it from US politicians veering towards protectionism or from corporate sponsors worried about being associated with China while human rights lobbyists step up the pressure in the West.

Beijing has to learn that engagement is a two-way street -- and that the neat boxes of its policy approach cannot always be separated as it would wish.

The only winner in Beijing will be tyranny
　

Pick any dictatorship at random and chances are you'll find China's malign influence at work there somewhere
　

By Nick Cohen
THE OBSERVER, LONDON
Tuesday, Feb 19, 2008, Page 9

At the opening ceremony of the 2008 Olympics, spectators will watch as athletes from the worst regimes on the planet parade by. Whether they are from dictatorships of the left or right, secular or theocratic, they will have one thing in common: The hosts of the Games that, according to the mission statement, are striving "for a bright future for mankind" will support their oppressors.

The flag of Sudan will flutter. China supplied the weapons that massacred so many in Darfur. As further sweeteners, it added interest-free loans for a new presidential palace and vetoes of mild condemnations of genocide from the UN. In return, China got most of Sudan's oil.

The Burmese athletes will wave to the crowd and look as if they are representing an independent country. In truth, Burma is little more than a Chinese satellite. In return for the weapons to suppress democrats and vetoes at the UN Security Council, the junta sells it gas at discounted rates far below what its wretched citizens have to pay.

There will be no Tibetan contingent, of course. Chinese immigrants are obliterating the identity of the occupied country, which will soon be nothing more than a memory. Athletes from half-starved Zimbabwe, whose senile despot props himself up with the Zimmer frame of Chinese aid, will be there, however.

As will teams from the Iranian mullahocracy, grateful recipients of Chinese missiles and the prison state of North Korea, for whom China is the sole reliable ally.

BEIJING VS BERLIN

With Steven Spielberg citing China's complicity in the Sudan atrocities as his reason for withdrawing as the Olympics' artistic adviser, comparisons with the 20th century will soon be flowing. Will Beijing be like the 1936 Berlin Olympics Hitler used to celebrate Nazism? Or the 1980 Moscow games the US boycotted in protest at the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan? I suspect the past won't be a guide because the ideological struggles of the 20th century are over. China's communists are communists in name only. They are not helping dictators because they are comrades who share their ideology. They have no ideology beyond national self-interest and a well-warranted desire to stop the outsiders insisting on standards in Africa or Asia they do not intend to abide by.

Human Rights Watch points out that if, say, Sudan were to change into a peaceful state with a constitutional government, the Chinese would not care as long as the oil still flowed. China's post-communists are like mafiosi. It is not personal, just business.

They are happy to do deals with anyone, as former US Secretary of State Henry Kissinger recognized when he set himself up to be PR man for so many of the corporations that went on to benefit from the Communist Party's repression of free trade unions.

Campaign groups and governments that want to promote the spread of democracy have been far slower to understand that the emerging power of the 21st century will be every tyrant's first customer and banker of last resort and then adjust their tactics accordingly.

Their failure may be because it is far from clear what fresh tactics are on offer. Take the supporters of Aung San Suu Kyi campaigning for a democratic Burma. Their demonstrations outside Chinese embassies have had no effect.

They persuaded British Prime Minister Gordon Brown to raise Myanmar in meetings with the Chinese leadership, but again Brown was unlikely to have made an impression.

Their other successes look equally fragile. The EU has imposed sanctions, but Western energy companies ask with justice why they should be told not to compete for gas contracts the Chinese will snap up.

More importantly, they are running into a problem familiar to anyone who campaigned against 20th-century dictatorships: where to find allies.

If you are protesting about an aspect of US policy -- Guantanamo Bay or attitudes to global warming -- this is not an issue.

You can ally with and be informed by US activists, journalists, lawyers and opposition politicians. The resources of the civic society of a free country are at your disposal and you can use them to shift US opinion. A subject of the Chinese Communist Party who helps foreign critics put pressure on Beijing risks imprisonment, and none but the bravest do.

PETERING OUT

British Foreign Secretary David Miliband showed he understood the dilemmas of the new century when he gave a lecture in honor of Aung Sang Suu Kyi in Oxford last week. He described how the great wave of democratization, which began with the fall of Franco's dictatorship in the 1970s, moved through South America, the Soviet empire, South Africa and the tyrannies of East Asia, was petering out.

The foreign secretary was undiplomatic enough to continue that the economic success of China had proved that history was not over and he was right. Its combination of communist suppression with market economics is being seen as a viable alternative to liberal freedoms, notably by Putin and his cronies, but also by anti-democratic forces across Asia.

The only justification for the Beijing games is that they will allow connoisseurs of the grotesque to inspect this ghoulish hybrid of the worst of capitalism and the worst of socialism close up. The march of China's bloodstained allies round the stadium will merely be the beginning.

The International Olympic Committee and all the national sports bureaucracies will follow up by instructing athletes not to say a word out of place.

The free-market chief executive officers of Coca-Cola, McDonald's, General Electric and all the other sponsors who have made money out of China will join the communists in insisting that outsiders have no right to criticize. Any Chinese dissident who hasn't been picked up before the world's journalists arrive will face terrifying punishments if he speaks to them.

I know sportsmen and women are exasperated by demands to boycott events they have dreamed of winning for years. Why should they suffer when no business or government is prepared to turn its back on the vast Chinese market? For all that, they still should not go.

The hypocrisy of the 2008 Olympics will make all but the most hard-hearted athletes retch. They will not look back on it not as a high point of their careers, but a nadir.

A close look at Beijing in Sudan
　

By Xan Rice
THE GUARDIAN, NAIROBI
Tuesday, Feb 19, 2008, Page 9

China's involvement in Sudan stretches back more than a decade and has snowballed to the extent that it now supplies nearly a quarter of the African country's imports and accounts for about 70 percent of its exports, mostly oil.

But despite growing global criticism of Chinese blank checks written to the regime in Khartoum, Beijing has shifted its policy in the past 18 months.

Chinese President Hu Jintao (胡錦濤) announced a US$13 million interest-free loan for a new palace for his Sudanese counterpart, Omar al-Bashir, and canceled debt worth US$70 million during a visit to Sudan in February last year. His government also publicly called for a ceasefire and a negotiated settlement in Darfur. A special envoy, Liu Guijin (劉貴今), was later appointed to help find a political solution in Darfur, and a team of 300 engineers was committed to support the peace effort.

Most significantly, analysts say, China backed security resolution 1769, which nearly tripled the size of the peacekeeping force in Darfur to 20,000 and brought in the UN alongside the African Union, which had led the mission. After successfully lobbying Bashir to accept the new force, China announced a US$10 million contribution to humanitarian aid in the country.

But many experts question how much pressure China is really exerting. Although the Chinese delegation at last month's African Union summit warned that the world was "running out of patience on Darfur," Sudan's government continues to hamper the new peacekeeping mission's deployment and last week launched the heaviest aerial attacks on villages in Darfur in more than a year.

"Sudan does listen and will continue to listen to what China says," said Sally Chin, Sudan analyst for the International Crisis Group. "There is so much more that it could be doing to put pressure on Khartoum to allow the peacekeepers into Darfur and to respect the ceasefire."

Egbert Wesselink, head of the European Coalition on Oil in Sudan, a research group, said China's "positive" influence did not appear to have had any real effect.

"It may be that it is giving a lot of good and wise advice to Sudan in private, but I have yet to see any tangible results in Darfur," he said.

So is this "new Chinese policy" meaningful?

"I would have to say not,"Wesselink said.

The relationship stretches back to 1994, when Khartoum's role in sponsoring terror and waging civil war in the south of the country severely limited its options for developing its petroleum industry. Eager to crack the western-dominated oil market, China dove in, helping Sudan become an oil exporter within five years by building a 1,600km pipeline and a refinery in the capital.

Along the way, the state-owned Chinese National Petroleum Co took 40 percent stakes in Sudan's two main oil consortiums. For China this proved extremely profitable as oil prices soared; in Sudan, human rights groups say, it helped fuel wars.

The Swiss-based Small Arms Survey says that up to 80 percent of Sudan's share of its early oil revenues was spent on weapons for the war in the south with the close assistance of China, which had previously sold it fighter jets and military helicopters.

By the beginning of the separate Darfur conflict in 2003, China had overtaken Iran as the country's main arms supplier and helped build weapons factories in Sudan. For Khartoum, which has also benefited from soft loans and Chinese expertise in building dams, bridges and rail networks, the partnership had another crucial upside.

As the war in Darfur attracted increasing international condemnation, China used its permanent seat on the UN Security Council to consistently stop strong action being taken against Sudan.

Pressure grows on Chinese, but who else could be implicated?
　

Beyond the ethical finger-pointing about Beijing's involvement in Africa lies a collective sin of willing omission

By Patrick Smith
THE OBSERVER, LONDON
Tuesday, Feb 19, 2008, Page 9

It has been a troubling year for China's policymakers as they face the diplomatic fall-out from the country's fast-expanding interests in Africa. Chinese oil workers have been taken hostage in Ethiopia and Nigeria, and opposition groups are now targeting Chinese firms in Sudan. Steven Spielberg's broadside against China's Sudan policy was just the latest reaction to Beijing's tangled web of African interests.

China's role as oil investor and arms supplier to Chad and Sudan came into focus this month as Sudanese-backed rebels nearly toppled Chadian President Idriss Deby's shaky regime in Ndjamena.

Last August, Deby broke diplomatic relations with Taiwan in favor of a more promising economic deal from Beijing and some protection from Sudan's regional meddling.

The Sudanese regime had wanted the rebels it armed and trained to take over in Chad and block the EU's imminent deployment of peacekeepers on Chad's border with Darfur. But Deby thwarted the plan with French military help and weapons from Libya. As European diplomats agonized over the prospect of their military mission being sidelined, Beijing stayed silent.

As Western states tried to help negotiate a settlement on Kenya's election battle, Beijing was silent again. Its sole official comment was an editorial in the People's Daily last Thursday, arguing that "Western-style democracy simply isn't suited to African conditions, but rather it carries with it the roots of disaster. The election crisis in Kenya is just one typical example."

Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Jiang Yu (姜瑜) said he couldn't "comment on the media's views," but reiterated that "China always adheres to the principle of non-interference."

Beijing's proclamations of "non-interference" have given way to claims that it is using its influence for the good. That's difficult to sustain in Sudan, where Sudanese President Omer el-Bashir's regime has just sent its militias to burn down more towns in Darfur, but continues to obstruct and delay the deployment of a joint African Union (AU) and UN peacekeeping force. Even worse, there is a prospect of Sudan's peace deal breaking apart as Omer's regime blocks the demarcation of the north-south border through the country's oilfields and the promised referendum on the south's secession.

Yet if China's influence on Khartoum seems to make little difference on the ground, the same can equally be said about the more overt Western pressure on Sudan. Russia, which also arms the Khartoum regime, doesn't even dignify its critics with a response.

European and US diplomats call their policy on Khartoum "constructive engagement." This means that they maintain intelligence cooperation with Sudan despite, or perhaps because of, its role as host to Osama bin Laden in the 1990s. Rolls-Royce and many other European companies have provided vital technology for Sudan's oil industry, although this doesn't come close to China's multi-billion investment.

Other Asian states, such as India and Malaysia, have big stakes in Sudanese oil, but have been better at dodging the opprobrium, as has Japan, which imports more Sudanese oil than China.

Beyond the ethical finger-pointing is a collective sin of omission -- Western and Asian states alike have failed to equip and train the type of effective peacekeeping force that could protect civilians in Darfur.

Beijing claims credit for persuading Omer to accept the UN/AU peacekeepers. But Beijing knows it will face more pressure in the run-up to the Olympics.

That's why Beijing's special ambassador to Africa, Liu Guijin (劉貴今), is reported to have told Sudanese Foreign Minister Deng Alor this month that "the world is running out of patience with what is going on in Darfur" and "not to do things that will cause the international community to impose sanctions on them."

That's a change of tack from his comments last year when asked about China's arms shipments to Sudan. He said: "If I am selling a knife, I cannot ensure that my client will not use the knife for murder."

Beijing may now tell us that it's taking much greater interest in how some of its clients wield their Chinese-made knives. Perhaps Spielberg should give Liu a call.

Patrick Smith is the editor of Africa Confidential.