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)

Hu's visit came amid signs that the Sudanese leadership was grudgingly moving toward acceptance of a compromise deal for U.N. troops to merge with the African Union force and form a joint peacekeeping mission.

U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon urged China to help persuade Sudan to accept U.N. peacekeepers during a meeting with Chinese U.N. Ambassador Wang Guangya last week.

"We certainly hope Hu will deploy his substantial influence in order for Khartoum to have a more constructive approach to international efforts," said Lawrence Rossin of the Save Darfur Coalition, a grouping of humanitarian and rights organizations.

Khartoum is accused of responding to the insurgency with indiscriminate killings, and by unleashing the janjaweed militias of Arab nomads. The janjaweed are blamed for the worst atrocities in the conflict, which the White House and others have labeled genocide.

The government denies these charges, and denounces as neocolonial the U.N. Security Council plan to replace an overwhelmed African Union force in the region with some 22,000 U.N. peacekeepers.

In a phone interview, Rossin pointed to Chinese officials' recent comments on Darfur and to the fact that news about the crisis are now regularly allowed to appear in China's government-controlled media as signs that Beijing may be willing to press Sudan on the issue.

Diplomatic circles also sense that China's patience "is growing thin" with Khartoum on the Darfur issue, said Sudan expert Colin Thomas-Jensen of the International Crisis Group, a New York-based think tank.

He said China gave the impression it wants to become "part of the solution" to the crisis.

"But if Sudan follows its usual pattern of saying 'yes' to the international community and then doing 'no,' we don't know how China will react," he said.