BEIJING, Jan. 10 -- China on Thursday rejected any attempts to connect humanitarian concerns about Darfur to the upcoming Beijing Olympics, saying they come from people unwilling to view objectively China's role in that embattled region of Sudan.
China's defense, given by Liu Guijin, special envoy for Darfur, came as Western governments and U.N. officials intensified criticism of the Sudanese government for throwing up obstacles to the deployment of a joint U.N.-African Union peacekeeping force that is supposed to field 26,000 troops but so far has only 9,000 on the ground.
Liu's comments reflected a newfound determination by the Chinese Foreign Ministry to respond to critics of its policy in Sudan. In particular, the Chinese government has urgently sought to fend off suggestions that this summer's Beijing Olympics should be boycotted. Chinese widely regard the Games as an international celebration of their country's swift progress over the last quarter-century; any boycott would be a political blow to the ruling Communist Party.
Some U.S. and European activists, including legislators and entertainment figures, have threatened to call for a boycott unless China exerts more pressure on the Sudanese government to cooperate with the peacekeeping forces and end the almost five-year-old Darfur conflict. But Liu said China should not be held responsible for everything Sudan's government does just because the two countries have flourishing trade relations, including oil deals, infrastructure projects and weapons sales.
Moreover, he said, China has already used what influence it has to help resolve the Darfur conflict. For instance, he said, President Hu Jintao played a key role in persuading the Sudanese government to accept the idea of United Nations involvement in a peacekeeping force during a visit to Khartoum, the Sudanese capital, last February.
Attempts to hold China responsible for the actions of the Sudanese military and its local allies in Darfur, Liu said, were "without justification."
Those making such charges, particularly in nongovernmental activist groups, include people who do not view China's role objectively and instead look at the Darfur tragedy "through lenses colored by ideological bias," he said in what was presented as a question-and-answer session on the government's Web site, http://china.com.cn.
Since black Africans in Darfur rebelled against the Arab-run Sudanese government in 2003, as many as 450,000 people have died from violence and disease and another 2.5 million have been driven from their homes, according to human rights groups.
The Sudanese government has resisted international efforts to deploy a large peacekeeping force to bring the conflict under control, saying the troops should be primarily African. Bowing to pressure from abroad, Sudan agreed in July to the 26,000-member U.N.-African Union force, but U.N. officials complain that Khartoum has been slow to allow deployment.
The U.N. peacekeeping chief, Jean-Marie Gu¿henno, told the Security Council on Wednesday that the force does not yet have necessary technical agreements with the Sudanese government for full deployment and, as a result, will not be able to carry out its mandate in the first months of this year.
