China’s African Mischief by Yuriko Koike, Steven Spielberg embarrass China calling Chinese game genocide Olympic Options

[myolinewu]

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-Qaddafi’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 Qaddafi’s dirtiest diplomatic secrets being exposed. On September 2, the Canadian newspaper The Globe and Mail reported on recent negotiations between the embattled Qaddafi 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 UN 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 Qaddafi’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.

Qaddafi’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, Qaddafi’s last hope for maintaining power became China, and so fear of its influence in Africa was brushed aside.

For decades, Qaddafi 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 Compaoré of Burkina Faso (initially rumored to be a likely destination for Qaddafi’s exile) received military training from Libya in the 1980’s before rising to power in a coup d’état. President Idriss Déby of Chad also brought about political change in 1990 with Qaddafi’s backing. Niger’s President Mahamadou Issoufou, who is now harboring Qaddafi’s third son, Saadi, was able to win his country’s presidential election last March thanks to financial support from Qaddafi.

But, in recent years, China became an obstacle to Qaddafi’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 United Nations 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 UN 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 US Congress, and a report by Amnesty International state that China exported weapons to Sudan in violation of UN 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 Qaddafi fought his opponents this summer, ten states in southern Sudan broke away, claiming independence as the 54th country on the African continent. Roughly 80% 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% 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 UN 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 US, 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 UN 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 UN 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.

Yuriko Koike, Japan’s former Minister of Defense and National Security Adviser, is Chairman of the Executive Council of the Liberal Democratic Party.

http://www.project-syndicate.org/commentary/koike22/English

[Hugham]

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What...????

I almost disbelieve that Japan’s former Minister of Defense and National Security Adviser wrote such idiot article.......

Quite surprising for someone with that low intelligence, he is an ex-Minister of Defense.

This is a real evidence that Japan is a puppet country.


Yeah, it is good that China is a neutral country and never involve other country domestic affair.

I wonder what will Japan do with US arrested 700 protesters in NY? Or UK dealing with the London riots (I mean peaceful protesters )?

This post has been edited by Hugham: Oct 17 2011, 05:15 AM

[bumboo]

There is no way Japan can do with Puppet master, their so-called human rights are applicable to U.S. GIs. South Korea and Japan, two puppet nations, is fine with GIs raping their women, what can you expect?

[Mauser]

Maybe if Ghaddafi wasn't such a crazy ruler he might've lived and continued to rule. He breaks diplomatic relations just because of something fickle.

[Hugham]

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Crazy ruler?

You should do more research about Libya achievement during his rule.

His biggest mistake in the eye of the West is his attitude against Israel occupation and prosecution to Palestinian.

And he also stay too long in power........

[Mauser]

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Crazy ruler?

You should do more research about Libya achievement during his rule.

His biggest mistake in the eye of the West is his attitude against Israel occupation and prosecution to Palestinian.

And he also stay too long in power........

Like all dictators, he had quirks.

http://www.pbs.org/newshour/bb/world/jan-j...afi2_02-23.html

[truthfinder]

Yuriko Koike is known as an anti-China Japanese.

If you managed to get your hand on the Strait Times, read some articles that she wrote there...

There is no point in listening to articles written by such person...

Just see what Libya has become after the West' intervention......same old story as in Iraq and other places...