4.2 South Sudan
South Sudan is a landlocked state in the northeast of Africa. Its current capital is Juba. It shares its borders with Sudan, Ethiopia, Kenya, Uganda, Congo and the Central African Republic. South Sudan has approximately 8 to 10 million inhabitants that form multiple ethnic groups: the Dinka, the Nuer, the Bari, and the Azande. Among these ethnic groups, the Dinka and the Nuer are the largest. After gaining independence from Sudan in 2011, South Sudan has become an internationally recognized country and has become a member of the United Nations and the African Union. While southern Sudan has a rich soil and favorable rainfall patterns, the South’s historic and political marginalization has resulted in an underdeveloped of the natural resources industry (ISS working paper, 2005).
4.2.1 History
The split of territory that Britain had instigated between Egypt and Sudan during their colonial rule (1899-1956) had provoked Egyptian nationalists who wanted the British to recognize a unified Islamic Egypt and Sudan. When Britain officially left Sudan in 1932, British military forces remained in place to protect Sudan for a potential nationalistic invasion from Egypt. Meanwhile, during colonial rule, large differences emerged between the north and the south of Sudan. And so, shortly before Sudan’s independence in 1956, a civil war between the north and the south broke out. The new northern government pursued one single Sudanese nation where it had not existed before. During their colonial rule, the Brits had sent Christian missionaries to the south, Anglicizing most of the education. Sudan’s north remained mostly Muslim and spoke Arabic so the country was divided on the basis of ethnicity, language and religion (Christopher 2011, p. 127). Programs to unify the country through ‘Arabization’ or ‘Islamicisation’ caused a southern reaction for the preservation of their identity. During this civil war, over two million people died and many others fled to neighboring countries. Relative peace only emerged after the Addis Ababa Agreement (AAA) in 1972. This agreement granted the south regional autonomy for the first time (Salman, 2011, p. 155).
However, when president Nimeiri imposed Shari’ a law over the south for a second time, and massively violated human laws and breached the Addis Ababa Agreement in several ways, the second civil war erupted in 1983 (Christopher 2011, p. 127). The South responded with the foundation of the Sudan People’s Liberation Army / Movement (SPLA/SPLM), led by John Garang De Mabiorm, they fought for a united, but democratic secular Sudan were all would benefit from future socio-economic development (Hutchinson 2001, p. 307). Second in command was Salva Kiir, who was more in favor of a south Sudanese secession (Jooma, 2005). In 1989, the National Islamic Front (NIF) of Omar al-Bashir gained power in Khartoum, but found no other foreign sponsor due to America’s containment policy and international sanctions against its repressive behavior. China saw in Sudan a country full of business opportunities and a future oil reserve. Among many other factors, this state of affairs would contribute to China’s role in later developments of the Sudanese conflict (Large 2009, p. 611).
4.2.2 China’s attitude towards the secession
In the decade before South Sudan’s declaration of independence, China had shown a strong stance against secessionism twice. In 2005 China adopted a rare domestic Anti-Secession law, which meant for Taiwan that its separatist notions not only politically but also legally conflicted with Beijing’s view on the island (Zou 2005). And in 2009, only a few years before the official referendum was held for South Sudan’s independence, China had made a strong stance against the secession of Kosovo from Serbia, by taking its arguments to the International Court of Justice (ICJ). Many state that China’s anti-secession view was more explainable by China’s perceived threat of its domestic secessionist cases, than its stance towards the importance of domestic noninterference in general (Alden 2007). Enforcing this assumption was China’s quick shut down of all discussions applying Kosovo’s secession to Tibet, Xinjiang or Taiwan (Jamar and Vigness 2010, p. 919).
However, next to explaining its stance against the former adopted right of self-determination for all people, China’s official counterarguments in the case of Kosovo particularly articulated its stance against domestic interference (Vidmar 2012, p.544). With Resolution 1244, which China had objected in the UNSC, the UN had legitimized an interim government and a NATO intervention in Kosovo, which would later facilitate Kosovo’s independence. China’s main concern was this military intervention and that the former resolution between Yugoslavia and Kosovo had purely envisioned the UNSC’s support in a fair political process; and not taking the lead in relation to the process’ outcome or the future status of Kosovo as a sovereign nation. Moreover, China also denoted that the legal status of Kosovo’s secession was actually illegal by international law, since Serbia and Yugoslavia, being the parent states, did not agree with the unilateral declaration of independence and a secession would mean a violation of its territorial integrity. Furthermore, China argued that “remedial self-determination” like the secession of Kosovo, should not be an exception to this principle (ICJ Advisory Opinion 2009, CR 29). As both Kosovo and South Sudan were under foreign supervision and gained independence from their parent state (and not from a former colonial state) through ‘remedial self-determination’, following expectations, China should have made its arguments against Kosovo’s case count for South Sudan’s secession in 2011.
However, South Sudan’s secession process also differed from Kosovo’s secession in many ways. Negotiations between the Sudan People’s Liberation Army/Movement (SPLA/M) and the Central Government of the Republic of Sudan (GoS) had started to gain ground, after the Inter-Governmental Authority on Development (IGAD) had stepped up as a mediator in 1994. The IGAD is an international organization for economic cooperation consisting out of delegations of neighboring East African countries (Jooma, 2005). It would mediate the negotiations until the implementation of the final CPA together with the US, Norway and the UK as observer states. The first basic agreements were signed in 2002 in Machakos, Kenya (Johnson 2008, p. 8). Both parties were aware of the lengthiness and the casualties of the war and signed the Machakos Protocol after one-and-a-half month of negotiations on the terms, the transition process and even the right to self-determination of the south.
The agreed principles comprised the right for the Southern Sudanese to control and govern affairs in their region, and equal participation in the National Government, the right to self-determination through a referendum determining South Sudan’s future status at the end of the interim period, and further cooperation on: a fair democratic system that would serve the needs of its people in terms of social, political and economic justice; negotiations and implementation of a ceasefire to end the suffering of the Sudanese people; a development plan to address the needs of the Sudanese people; and a design to make the unification an attractive prospect for the southern Sudanese. The transition process was formulated as a six months pre-interim period in which the institutions, the mechanisms, the monitoring and international assistance would be established to make the Peace Agreement and the referendum at the end of the interim-period possible. Next to that, agreements on freedom of religion, customs and beliefs and on the new infrastructure of the government were signed. Lastly, the structure for the referendum, the pre-transition period and the relevant monitoring actors involved were agreed upon as well (Machakos Protocol (CPA) 2005).
Further following important protocols for the CPA, related to ‘security arrangements’; ‘wealth-sharing’; ‘power-sharing’; and resolutions on several conflict areas were signed in 2003 and 2004 (Comprehensive Peace Agreement 2005). The oil infrastructure of pipelines, refineries, and export facilities were all located in the north of Sudan, and so extensive negotiations – interrupted more than once over disagreements- for the CPA were directed towards this problem. Both regions namely heavily relied on this source of income (United Nations Mission in Sudan, n.d.). Eventually, in January 2005 the Interim National Constitution of the Republic of Sudan contained the main clauses of the CPA, such as the governance principles and institutions that would set in during the following 6-year interim period (Salman 2011, p. 154). One could say that the nature of relations between the two parties was thus simultaneously hostile, yet cooperative, constructing domestic law in the interest of future peace in case of a future secession. In addition, the CPA implied internal recognition when South Sudan would secede, since northern Sudan agreed on the prerequisites of the secession. Recognizing South Sudan would thus practically not interfere with Sudan’s affairs, since Sudan ex ante had agreed with a possible secession.
Before the agreements of the CPA came in force in 2005, a South Sudanese delegation led by Salva Kiir paid a visit to Beijing to discuss future economic opportunities. A friendship agreement was signed soon after. In 2008, a Chinese consulate even opened its doors in Juba (Salman, 2011: 155, 156; Large 2009). From China’s perspective, this was still on the basis of non-interference since the government of Sudan (GoS) and South Sudan had agreed upon this new division of territory. This could be explained by the fact that the southern SPLM was legally incorporated in the northern Government of National Unity as was agreed upon in the CPA. Because of this, it was politically and legally possible for Beijing to establish a direct relation with Juba as well. Since it thus already had an indirect relation with the SPLM. Large (2009, p. 621) typifies China’s approach to Sudan around that time as ‘one Sudan, two systems’, hinting to China’s domestic governing structure with respect to Taiwan.
Moreover, South Sudan would eventually not secede with help of any external military force or as a result of an externally imposed idea, like the UN had done in Kosovo’s case. The secession and recognition of South Sudan, therefore, was perceived as a lesser threat to China’s domestic status quo. The secession process included a mutual agreement, which in China’s case would never be reached. And, the secession process was less insinuating to any potential chance of foreign intervention in China.
When the CPA was signed in July 2005, it was clear that South Sudan, presenting multiple ethnic groups, did not have one uniform society. Several struggles continued despite the ceasefire. However, the results of the national elections in 2010 showed a clear split between the north and the south. 71,1% of the Sudanese voted for the northern National Assembly, whereas 22.0% voted for the Southern Sudan People’s Liberation Movement (SPLM), the political branch of the SPLA in the south. Since these results almost exactly matched the relative demographics of both regions, now two one-party states had emerged and the secession of South Sudan became a serious prospect. Under the supervision of the UN and the African Union, the final referendum was held in January 2011. With a legally binding required minimum of 60 percent voting for the secession, 99.57 percent of the southern Sudanese and 98.55 percent of Sudanese abroad voted for independence (Jooma 2005). This showed that a unified Sudan had not become a more attractive status after 2005 for the southern Sudanese. After South Sudan’s actual secession in July 2011 as was agreed upon in the CPA, the Republic of Sudan officially announced its recognition of South Sudan on the 9th of July 2011 (Reuters 2011).
During the six years in which the CPA was in force, China stabilized its contact with the SPLM with incremental steps of gaining trust, since it formerly had supported South Sudan’s enemy during the war (Large 2008; Large 2012). Therefore, within a few days of South Sudan’s successful unilateral declaration of independence from Sudan, China’s foreign minister officially gave a diplomatic approval for the birth of the new state. In the Sudan Tribune of July 10th 2011, the official statement with respect to China’s recognition of South Sudan by Foreign Minister Yang Jiechi was as follows: “The Government of the People’s Republic of China announces its recognition of South Sudan, and from now on with the establishment of diplomatic relations at the ambassadorial level. China is ready on the basis of peaceful coexistence, with the development of friendly relations and cooperation in all areas of South Sudan. “
4.2.3 China’s involvement
Diplomatic ties between the PRC and Sudan were established in 1959, three years after Sudan’s independence from Britain. At the time, the PRC needed new connections to gain more international support and recognition. Like many other new political relations initiated in Africa, China’s diplomatic glue mostly promoted a common history of suffering under colonialism and related on a manipulated story about the origin of interstate links. China-Sudan relations allegedly were going back to the mid-19th century, when the British General Charles ‘Chinese’ Gordon who played a great part in the repression of the Taiping rebellion, was murdered by a Sudanese man during his time as governor of Sudan (Strauss 2009, p. 784). In 1964, relations were consolidated during Zhou Enlai’s first big tour to Africa. During his visit to Sudan he propagated China’s fraternity on the basis of colonial history, and their willingness to help overcome this history, politically and economically (Strauss 2009, p. 783, 784). Bilateral ties however remained mostly symbolic and low-level. The principles of non-interference and sovereignty kept China neutral towards the civil war that had broken out, even before the establishment of the relation with the northern government of the war-torn country.
Relations got more serious after Sudanese president Gaafar Nimeiri visited China in 1970. After this visit, China provided Sudan with its first non-conditional and interest-free loan. China also financed the building of the Friendship Hall in Khartoum, which is still a major landmark today, and sent their first foreign medical team to Sudan. In return, Sudan could repay its loan with crops and started exporting cotton to China. After a failed coup against the Sudanese president Nimeiri by Sudanese army officers that had close ties with the pro-Soviet Sudanese Communist Party (SCP) in 1971, Sudan-China relations became even closer. China benefited from the blame that was put on the USSR and provided Sudan with a second interest-free loan and offered to take over the training and equipment of Sudanese armed forces, which was the former responsibility of the USSR (Shinn and Eisenmann, p. 251).
After the Addis Ababa Agreement (AAA) led to peace in 1972, Western oil companies Shell and Chevron were the first to profit from anti-Soviet sentiment in the government and began their first oil drillings in the Red Sea. Two years after the first oil was discovered in the Bentiu region in 1978, president Nimeiri divided the South into three separate regions, creating a new state in the South where the oil was found, called Unity State. However, on the map attached to the decisive bill, the Unity state was now part of northern Sudan. This caused a commotion amongst southerners. Subsequent oil discoveries in the region made the power struggle over the south and the oil regions more aggressive. Earnings from future oil extraction in the south would benefit the central government directly. The central government namely initiated development of oil refineries in the North and not in the South where the oil was found, and the oil-export through the northern harbor Port Sudan generated a ‘division of labor’ between the north and the south. Due to the establishment of this new oil infrastructure (Figure 2), the north would benefit in a highly unequal manner compared to the South. As a reply, the SPLM/A started to attack oil installations and (mostly Western) oil companies that were assumed to be working with the central government in Khartoum (Jooma 2005, p. 11). This continued during the second civil war, which broke out in 1983.
The traditional political China-Sudan relation became more strategic after 1989. Around the same time, the National Islamic Front (NIF) of al-Bashir seized power in Sudan. This new Sudanese government faced much adversity and outside critic as it was violating human rights in a still ongoing and brutal civil war. Al-Bashir therefore turned to China for financial assistance. After he had suggested China to develop Sudan’s petroleum reserves, China’s oil investments started to rise as well as Sudan’s oil exports (Figure 2). In addition to investing $6 billion in the oil sector, China provided more soft loans for hydroelectric power stations, agricultural schemes, dam construction, and infrastructure projects (Jooma 2005, p. 12). Soon, operations for the first pipeline towards Port Sudan followed by the China National Petroleum Corporation (CNPC). After the pipeline was finished in 1999 and went in operation by the CNPC, who was also 40% stakeholder (Appendix 4), the first oil shipments could leave Port Sudan. This resulted into China becoming Sudan’s most important oil importer.
However, China also exported a fair share of goods to Sudan in return (Appendix 4), among which small arms (Figure 3). China’s maintenance of principles of non-interference and sovereignty received much pressure, for it was dealing these arms to the National Islamic Front (NIF), which was at war with the SPLA (Large 2009, p. 611). China initially denied and later argued, it was only one of the actors that were giving the NIF active military support despite an UN embargo. When the UNSC finally condemned Sudan giving its central government a month to retreat its militias in 2004, a measure for which China abstained from voting due to its strong bilateral relation, Sudan’s central government did not respond (Straus 2005, p. 124-126).
Figure 2. Crude oil production and consumption in Sudan and South Sudan, 1990-2012 (1000 b/d)
Source: U.S. Energy Information Administration, Available from < http://www.eia.gov/countries/analysisbriefs/Sudan/sudan.pdf> [6 June 2014]
Figure 3. Sudanese oil for Chinese Small Arms
Source: Human Rights First, Available from: < http://www.humanrightsfirst.org/wpcontent/uploads/pdf/080311-cah-arms-sales-fact-sheet.pdf> [7 June 2014]
However, during the negotiations between the north and the south that eventually led to the CPA, a war broke out in Sudan’s western Darfur region in 2003. Locally, an ethnic conflict over resources had evolved since the 1980s between ethnic Africans and ethnic Arabs. Due to the fact that the fighting parties in Darfur were never represented in peace talks, which were held between the north and the south around that time, the government in Khartoum quickly responded to the violence by arming the Arab tribes to eliminate the rebellion. The original fight against two rebellion groups led to uncontrolled killings of black “Africans” from three tribes. When the war in Darfur still continued when the ceasefire of the CPA came in force, the international community, especially the US, hesitated to call the violence genocidal, as it would not be able to fulfil its moral plight to military interference. This gave more leeway for violence. However, due to the fact that 90 percent of the light weapons used in Darfur were traced back to China, the international community started to exert pressure on China to stop its weapons trade and to pressure al-Bashir to stop the violence. With the Beijing Olympic Games in sight, China increasingly complied and started to encourage the GoS to curb its militias and to accept the presence of a hybrid African Union-UN peacekeeping mission in Darfur in 2006 (Attree 2012, p.18; Human Rights First, 2008).
At first sight, this change of behavior would not be relevant for this case study, focusing on the secession process of South Sudan. However, when the CPA came in force in 2005, and China established relations with the GoSS, CNPC was the main economic actor for the oil exploitation in the South. When the first oil fields were discovered in southern Sudan, China had invested heavily in the oil extraction development, including the financing of the pipelines towards the northern harbor Port Sudan (Appendix 5). Since 75 Percent of the Sudanese oil reserves were located in the south, providing an estimated 95% of the total income of the Government of South Sudan (GoSS), China’s investments would largely be under GoSS’ control after a future secession. With this insight, peace between the North and the South would contribute to the safety of China’s oil extraction companies. China therefore started to mediate negotiations between the north and the south, as it urged both parties to “adhere to peace and to restrain themselves” (Attree 2012, p. 18), simultaneously, soothing both relations with increasing aid assistance (Appendix 6).
When South Sudan’s independence neared in 2010, the GoSS still explicitly pointed out, that if China wanted to hold its oil assets in the south it would have to recognize the outcome of the future referendum on South Sudan’s secession in case of a decision for independence (Attree 2012: 17). South Sudan had never trusted China, as it was seen as Khartoum’s ally for its arm trade during the war. Clearly, this distrust had not entirely healed, despite the establishment of formal relations. Attree (2012) argues that this was an important reason for China to be one of the first to recognize the new country in 2011. However, looking at China’s prior friendly stance towards the GoSS, and China’s pressure on the GoS during the negotiations and Darfur, this demand would probably not have been necessary if China would not have had its formal stance against the Friendly Relations Declaration in the first place.
4.2.4 China’s growing power
After an accidental air raid on the Chinese Embassy in Belgrade during the NATO intervention in Kosovo, China and Russia made a pact in 1996 to support each other against future unipolar US and NATO aggression. From a military viewpoint, both countries considered the NATO attack to be an aggressive act against sovereign Yugoslavia outside NATO’s area, and not a legitimate NATO intervention, as it was not backed by China and Russia in the UNSC. In addition, both countries agreed that the NATO attack was asymmetrical in terms of military strength and that this war was therefore a dangerous precedent for the future; even more so, since both countries expected more ethnic and regional conflicts on their own territory in the future. Therefore, as its military power was inferior to that of the US, China’s military leadership started to review and increase its defense budget (Yoshiaki and Katsuhiko 2002, p. 1-4). This increase generated Western perceptions on China as a future threat to the international world order. Nurturing this threat was the fact that after 2005 the US and China got into a race for oil (Zhao 2008, p. 97) (Appendix 7). And, that China was trading arms to el-Bashir. Supporting an unpopular regime and selling it weapons was a controversial move. According to Alden and Hughes (2009, p. 568), China always wanted to maintain a low-profile role in Sudan’s case. It is at least remarkable that even prior to the international notion of China being a world power, Zhao Ziyang’s Africa tour in the 1980s and Jiang Zemin’s tour in the mid-1990s did not pay a visit to Sudan. It is unclear whether this was due to the risky situation in Sudan, or China’s awareness of its own reputation.
However, as China accomplished so much in terms of its domestic economic reforms in the last few decades, Western countries increasingly expected that China assumed more international responsibilities, like Western countries with similar power statuses did (Yan 2006, p. 7). Western negative judgements on China’s lack of taking responsibility could have been due to overestimating China’s power at the time, but it is hard to argue that China could not foresee foreign criticism on its arm deals with the government in Khartoum during the Sudanese civil war. Along many other sceptics, Alden and Hughes (2009) argue that China’s subsequent diplomatic claims to contribute to a harmonious world are doubtful. It was a consequence of China’s growing need for oil resources and it’s clinging on to its principles of non-interference and state sovereignty while investing in a relation with a suppressive regime, were the region that China had gotten caught up as one of the eventual crucial actors for the solution of the Sudan’s civil war.
When it became clear for China that it had to cooperate with two conflicting actors after the CPA came into force, it increasingly urged the SPLM and the GoS to adhere to the peace option (Carlson 2011). As China was the only international actor that had good relations with AL Bashir -although under increasing pressure, China took on a mediating role in line with the African Union and the UN Security Council, cooperating with the international community (Attree 2012, p. 18; Large 2009, Large 2012). Although the conflict in Darfur continued until a ceasefire in 2010, China increasingly played an important part in pushing el-Bashir to comply with Western demands with respect to the situation in Darfur. Two external factors have contributed to this change in behavior. Firstly, international pressure on China had pushed it towards a more active stance in the security situation. As Sudan’s foremost oil importer since 1995, China was required to take more responsibility especially in case of Darfur where China’s weapons were used against civilians. This escalated to the point where the international community threatened to boycott China’s Olympics in 2008.
Secondly, following Zhang’s (2014) argument that China laid importance on the opinion of local governing organs before it took its own position, the African Union might also have had an influence on China through its own call to end the violence in Darfur. African Union-China relations were naturally of strategic importance for China’s economic interest. In 2002, the African Union had adopted the principle of ‘non-indifference’ in the African Union’s Constitutive Act (Williams 2007, p. 254). The Chair of African Union Commission directly invoked this principle when the deployment of peacekeeping troops in Darfur began, after China’s encouragements to el-Bashir (Strauss 2009, p. 794).
4.2.5 Conclusion
Initially, China-Sudan relations developed from a state-to-state engagement into a state-supported economic engagement operating in public, while following the basic guiding principles for its foreign relations. The closeness of the relation with the government in Khartoum was a direct result of China’s need for more foreign oil sources and the American-led containment policy, which comprised international sanctions against Khartoum (Large 2009, p. 615). However, we can argue that after the CPA, China breached its principle of sovereignty to a certain extent, even if this was consistent with a political arrangement (Carlson 2011). China also broke with its principle of non-interference by pushing both parties into negotiations. However, China’s recognition of South Sudan was due to simultaneous internal and external pressures. Internally, China had to recognize South Sudan to secure its oil investments, which were mostly located in the south and were produced by over a decade of economic engagement. This was such a large percentage of China’s total oil imports that China had to interfere when the North failed to contain the situation, putting China’s oil workers in increasing danger (Large 2009). Peace would thus also benefit China due to its investments in the border transcending oil infrastructure, which had been under fire multiple times. However, China’s official recognition came after South Sudan’s threat to ban China’s oil companies if China would not recognize the country.
The external pressure on China to contribute to the peace came from different directions. China came under pressure from the West due to its arms trade with Khartoum and its unique relationship with Khartoum. With the Beijing Olympics in sight, the West had important new leverage. In addition, the African Union –an important organization for China- also wanted to stop the violence in Darfur.
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