U.N. Hopes China Pushes for Darfur End

Chinese President Hu Jintao stands with Liberian leader Ellen Johnson Sirleaf at a meeting in Monrovia, Liberia Thursday, Feb. 1, 2007. Liberians lined the potholed streets leading to the airport to welcome the Chinese leader Thursday as their leaders prepared to ask him for help in rebuilding this war-ravaged West African nation. (AP Photo/Pewee Flomoku) (Pewee Flomoku - AP)

KHARTOUM, Sudan -- The United Nations hopes the Chinese president will push for a solution to the Darfur crisis during his landmark visit to Sudan on Friday. But Khartoum expects its staunchest diplomatic ally to stick to boosting commercial ties, particularly those assuring its access to Sudan's oil.

The road to Khartoum's airport was lined with the red banners of communist China and the flag of Sudan's Muslim fundamentalist regime on Thursday ahead of Hu Jintao's two-day visit, the first by a Chinese president to Sudan.

China, which is the biggest foreign investor in Sudan and buys two-thirds of the country's oil exports, has used its veto-wielding status at the U.N. Security Council to prevent harsh measures against Sudan over the Darfur conflict.

But Beijing has raised expectations that Hu may pressure Khartoum to show flexibility in ending Darfur's bloodshed.

In an unusual foray into the field of human rights, Chinese officials have called on Sudan to cooperate with the United Nations in finding a solution in Darfur. China usually avoids such public pronouncements under its proclaimed policy of refusing to interfere in what it considers other countries' internal affairs.

More than 200,000 people have been killed and 2.5 million chased from their homes in Sudan's remote western region since 2003, when ethnic African rebels rose up against the central government. On Thursday, an African Union peacekeeper was killed by unidentified gunmen in a Darfur refugee camp, the 11th peacekeeper to be slain in the conflict.

Sudan has resisted demands that it allow U.N. peacekeepers into the region, calling the deployment "neocolonial."

Khartoum has sought to keep the focus of Hu's visit on the two nations' booming economic ties. "This visit is going to be a great boost for the distinguished Sudanese-Chinese relations in various fields," Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir said, according to the official SUNA news agency.

Al-Bashir "commended the various Chinese investments in the Sudan, particularly in the domains of oil, agriculture and dams," said SUNA after the president met Thursday with the Chinese National Petroleum Corp.'s head of operations in Sudan.

The Sudanese economy grew by 12 percent last year according to the International Monetary Fund. Chinese investment has helped boost production of the country's prime resource _ oil _ which has risen to an output of 500,000 barrels a day.

China is also funding large projects such as the $1.8 billion Merowe hydroelectric complex. Hundreds of Chinese engineers and workers are believed to be living in Sudan, though no one at China's embassy was available to confirm figures.

"We like it here, it's promising for business," said Daisy Wan Chu, an employee at Mr. Wang, one of the flourishing Chinese restaurants that offer a rare alternative to Sudanese cuisine in Khartoum.