PrintPerhaps the most controversial of China’s oil interests, and one that well demonstrates China’s commitment to lock in oil deals in Africa, is its relationship with Sudan.
China has been faced with international criticism for much of its business practice in acquiring natural resources. At the forefront of this criticism is its growing influence in Africa. On the one hand, China has been contributing much needed infrastructure to many of the underdeveloped African nations. On the other hand, China’s practices are believed to be exacerbating some of the political problems in certain countries, maybe even increasing instability in some cases.
Beijing is the leading developer of oil reserves in Sudan, and currently possesses 40 percent of the African country’s local production, which amounts to six percent of China’s total oil consumption.
One of the poorest countries in the world, Sudan has long sought to extract oil riches. For various reasons, including a lack in financial capacity, it was unable to do so on its own. In the 1960s and 1970s, Chevron Corporation took the lead but later abandoned its concessions due to the civil war in the 1980s. In 1996, Arakis Energy Corp., a Canadian firm, began developing the Heglig and Unity fields, which were estimated to contain between 600 million and 1.2 billion barrels. The fields were not located near the Red Sea, which prompted Arakis to enter into a consortium with the Greater Nile Petroleum Operating Company (GNPOC), to raise capital for a nearly 1,000-mile pipeline from the oil fields to the Suakim oil terminal near Port Sudan. In 1998, Arakis sold out to a larger Canadian company, Talisman Energy Inc.
Then in early March 2003, Talisman sold its complete 25 percent stake in the Greater Nile Oil Project to ONGC Videsh. This came after a lawsuit, filed in 2001 by the Presbyterian Church of Sudan, which claimed that Talisman aided the Sudanese military in a "brutal ethnic cleansing campaign." Human rights groups had campaigned against the company for years, claiming that the oil revenues paid to the Sudanese government were used to buy arms to fight the civil war, which resulted in the loss of an estimated two million people.
Today CNPC is the largest shareholder in GNPOC. The other shareholders in the consortium are Petronas (Malaysia), Sudapet (Sudan) and ONGC (India). What makes China’s involvement in Sudan so controversial, and any company’s for that matter are the atrocities taking place within Sudan and China’s undying support of the Sudanese government.
China is providing diplomatic protection to a government accused by the United Nations of genocide in the western region of Darfur. Various human rights groups have repeatedly accused Sudan of systematically massacring civilians and chasing them off ancestral lands to clear oil-producing areas. For years rebels have attacked oil installations in Sudan, hoping to deprive the government of any means to pursue a civil war that has claimed so many lives. Yet, today, Chinese laborers are shielded from these attacks, working under the protection of Sudanese government troops armed mostly with Chinese-made weapons.
In 2000, Sudanese resistance forces were said to be collecting photographs of Chinese-made weapons to prove the increase in Beijing’s support for Khartoum. In July 2000, WorldNetDaily reported that Sudan had acquired 34 new jet fighters from China. In June 2001, the Mideast Newsline reported that Sudan had built three weapons factories with Chinese assistance in order to drive a halt to rebel advances. China reportedly provided arms support to Sudan in exchange for oil.
There is no real evidence, however, that this arms support is still taking place today. Meanwhile, China maintains that its role in Sudan is highly beneficial to the S
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