Global Review Contents

Winter 2012 Roundtable China’s Role in the International Conflict-management The Sudan - South Sudan Reconciliation: More Patience and Efforts Needed ZHONG Jianhua 1 China's Relations with Two Sudans: From ‘One Country, Two Systems’ to ‘Two Countries, One System’ ZHANG Chun 3 China in the International Conflict-management: Darfur as a Case JIAN Junbo 7 China’s Role in Sudan and South Sudan Peacekeeping Operations XUE Lei 12 The EU and the Sudans Dame Rosalind Marsden 15 Development through Peace: Could China’s economic cooperation with South Sudan be more conflict-sensitive? Thomas Wheeler 19 China, Sudan and South Sudan Relations Leben Nelson Moro 23 The history of South Sudan’s Chinese future

Daniel Large 27 Articles Transition and Upgrading of China’s Diplomatic Planning in the First Decade of the New Century CHEN Dongxiao 31 On the Dynamics of China’s Mediation Diplomacy in the Middle East SUN Degang 47 Does culture affect in the financial decision making of rational man? Chinese vs. Anglo-Saxon Perspective Clemente Hernandez-Rodriguez & Mauricio Cervantes-Zepeda 67 The Energy-Water-Food Nexus and Its Implications for China-Africa Green Cooperation in Rio+20 YU Hongyuan 76 The Sustainable Development of Sino-African Cooperation: Actors, Gaps and Reforms ZHU Ming & Ph.D Candidate 93

Abstracts Transition and Upgrading of China’s Diplomatic Planning in the First Decade of the New Century CHEN Dongxiao China’s diplomatic planning have been enriched and improved in the first decade of the new century suggesting rapid transition and upgrading of China’s diplomacy. Among which, China has introduced the idea of “new-type partnership” to build up the big-power strategic mutual trust and balanced development in the new period, and China has applied the new thinking of “sharing responsibilities, expanding common interests and seeking win-win outcomes” to seek common development with the developing countries, a demonstration of creative thinkings in China’s diplomatic planning; China is more active in pushing for the two “upgrades” of building new order in the peripheries, and China has applied a new-type mutually beneficial strategy to step up cooperation with the developing world, a demonstration of a stronger capability of China’s diplomatic planning; and China has aligned Chinese interests with its internationally-expected identity and responsibility in the international system, and China is increasingly reckoning constructive contribution as the major content of China’s interaction with the outside world, a demonstration of a broadening diplomatic vision of China.

On the Dynamics of China’s Mediation Diplomacy in the Middle East SUN Degang Mediation diplomacy is an essential channel for sovereign states, regional and international organizations to participate in global governance, enhance political influence and facilitate relations with other big powers. In the new era, US, EU, Russia, UN, Arab League and African Union have initiated their respective mediation diplomacy of various forms and substance. With the Middle East as a case in point, this paper analyzes the four variables of China’s mediation diplomacy in the Middle East in the new era, i.e. the relevance of China’s interest, the projection of China’s influence, the expectation of the international community, and the difficulty of the conflict resolution. Through a thorough trade-off of the above-mentioned variables, China’s mediation diplomacy reveals divergent forms, which can be categorized into four groups, namely, In-depth Involvement, Pro-active Participation, Limited Arbitration and Standing Aloof. The four categories of China’s mediation diplomacy shed light on the divergence of China’s participation in the Middle East conflict resolutions of Sudanese issue, Iranian nuclear issue, Syrian crisis, and internal Somali discords.

Does culture affect in the financial decision making of rational man? Chinese vs. Anglo-Saxon Perspective Clemente Hernandez-Rodriguez & Mauricio Cervantes-Zepeda During this research we asked about the financial system to individuals from two groups of residents, in Shanghai, China: Chinese citizens and English-speaking Foreigners. According to the hypothesis of rational individuals outcomes out of such a survey would be similar, but if somewhat culture affects the decision making in financial issues; we might find very different answers due to belonging to different cultural groups. Empirical evidence found in our survey shows different answers, which supports the hypothesis that culture matters for the financial decision making. The Energy-Water-Food Nexus and Its Implications for China-Africa Green Cooperation in Rio+20 YU Hongyuan Among all challenges caused by climate change, food crises, water scarcity and energy insecurity, pose the nexus threat to the world. This paper explores the connections between water, energy, food production and the hard and soft dimensions of their impacts on international security and cooperation based for China and African countries. It first looks at the water-energy-food nexus caused by climate change and the consequences faced by China and African countries. Then, it describes China’s and African countries’ domestic and international responses to nexus crisis. Finally, some of the implications of China-Africa cooperation and the implications for global green development is discussed. The Sustainable Development of Sino-African Cooperation: Actors, Gaps and Reforms ZHU Ming In the past, China’s relations with Africa are relatively limited, either mainly on political issues before reform and opening-up policy in 1978 or on economic cooperation which is mainly after 1978. Since 2000, the relations between Africa and China have entered into a new age featured with surprisingly faster, deeper and wider cooperation dimensions, which is quite different from the past period. With the framework of FOCAC, both sides try to develop a kind of multi-dimensional partnership, which should involve civil society, think tanks, enterprises etc. But due to the not fully developed capacities of both sides, the “Capacity Gap” problem has emerged. Both Africa and China need to do a lot more to cultivate more powerful non-state actors to increase the dynamics of mutual cooperation.

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The Sudan - South Sudan Reconciliation:  More Patience and Efforts Needed

ZHONG Jianhua∗ The Sudan - South Sudan issue is one of Africa's longest, toughest problems with profound and lasting significance. Due to the multiple factors such as complicated history, mixed races, and religious conflicts, two civil wars broke out between the Northern and the Southern Sudan in the last century, lasting almost 40 years. In 2005, under the mediation of the international community, the two parties signed the Comprehensive Peace Agreement (CPA), ending the longest civil war in the history of the African continent. A referendum was held in early 2011 in accordance with the CPA to determine if the Southern Sudan should declare its independence from Sudan, with 98.83% of the population voting for separation. On July 9th of the same year, the Government of Southern Sudan declared its independence as the Republic of South Sudan. The now two countries have paid a tremendous cost for this hard-won peaceful separation. However, the shadow of conflicts resulting from the decades-long civil wars is still hanging over the two countries. The road towards enduring peace is still full of twists and turns. Because of the boundary demarcation disputes and differences over oil revenues sharing and the status of the Abyei region, frictions have never stopped between the two countries and sometimes erupted into fierce border conflicts. In order to ease the tension, the international community made a collective response and concerted efforts at a critical moment. This April, the African Union, as the major mediator, initiated a "Road Map" solution and afterwards convened a number of negotiations between the two sides. In support of the African Union's "Road Map", the UN Security Council adopted resolutions 2046 and 2047 in this May and held consultations and reviews on the Sudan – South Sudan issue on a regular basis. On September 27th, coordinated under the African Union and witnessed by the international community, the two countries, after a number of intensive meetings, signed in Addis Ababa the Cooperation Agreement between the Republic of South Sudan and Republic of Sudan, including a string of agreements concerning oil revenues sharing, fiscal arrangements, and status of nationals of

∗ H.E. Amb. ZHONG Jianhua is Chinese Government’s Special Representative on African Affairs.

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other state, etc. These agreements will definitely play a positive role in easing the two sides' relations, stabilizing their domestic situations, and maintaining regional stability at large.

At present, the Sudan - South Sudan reconciliation issue is moving in the direction of peaceful solution and the two sides are given a favorable opportunity for a ‘real’ start of peace and a new era of cooperation and mutual benefit. How to enlarge consensus, promote negotiations, maintain and solidify the current proactive momentum, and speed up the appropriate settlement of the remaining issues between the two sides have become the international community's common challenge and mission. As a permanent member of the UN Security Council and true friend of both Sudan and South Sudan, China has consistently supported and contributed to the peace process between the two countries. Both in bilateral relations with the two countries and on multilateral occasions such as in Forum on China-Africa Cooperation (FOCAC) and China-Arab States Cooperation Forum, Chinese leaders always tried to persuade the two sides to settle relevant issues through peaceful negotiations. Since appointed as the Chinese Government’s Special Representative on African Affairs, I have visited the two countries for several times and kept regular contacts with relevant sides. The diplomatic efforts made by China in solving the Sudan – South Sudan issue have been productive, not only easing the regional tension and promoting the two sides' reaching an agreement on oil revenues sharing, but also consolidating China's relations with both countries.

As an African saying goes, to be without a friend is to be poor indeed. China always thinks that as neighboring countries indispensable to each other, Sudan and South Sudan should be friends living in harmony and partners that develop themselves hand in hand. This is also a wish shared by the international community. In the next stage, the two countries will have negotiations on the implementation of the agreements and other unsettled issues. The international community is supposed to keep its patience and take good care of the seed of peace that has been planted between the two sides, cultivating it into a luxuriant tree of happiness that shelters the two countries' people and the people in surrounding areas.

 

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China's Relations with Two Sudans: From ‘One Country, Two Systems’ to ‘Two Countries, One System’

 

ZHANG Chun∗

Either before or after the peaceful separation, the relationship between former northern and southern part of Sudan, now Sudan and South Sudan, is full of disputes and even conflicts and wars, which imposes great pressures on China’s foreign policy. However, China tried hard to play a constructive role in both promoting the realization of Comprehensive Peace Agreement (CPA) concluded in 2005 and mediating the contradictions between the two parties after the separation in 2011, while the policies in different periods are a bit different.

The difference is: it’s a policy of ‘one country two systems’ in the first period and of ‘two countries one system’ in the second. Since the signing of CPA in 2005, China has closely engaged into its implementation. To better deal with the SPLM-led Government of Southern Sudan (GoSS), China introduced the policy of ‘one country, two systems’.① Since 2005, China and GoSS have established formal relations, with President Hu Jintao and President Salva Kiir met twice in 2007 and later China opened a new consulate in Juba in 2008, an example followed by many Chinese companies. Most significantly, the Chinese Government’s Special Representative for African Affairs, with special interests in Sudan and Darfur issues, always attaches great importance to the implementation of CPA. While there are skepticism from the international community, China confirmed the international community that it supported the full implementation of CPA and would collaborated with the USA to promote it. Former Envoy Ambassador LIU Guijin met with America’s special envoy to Sudan Princeton Layman at least 5 times in the half year

∗ Dr. ZHANG Chun is Deputy Director, Center for West Asian and African Studies, Shanghai Institutes for International Studies (SIIS). ① Daniel Large, “China’s Sudan Engagement: Changing Northern and Southern Political Trajectories in Peace and War,” The China Quarterly, 199, September 2009, pp. 610–626.

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before the referendum, the latter expressed that he believed China had delivered the right message to both parties of Sudan.①

Though the two countries are separated peacefully, the story is not over with a lot of unsettled disputes, which requires policy adjustment for not only China, but other external partners including USA, EU, and many others. The reason lies in the changing fact that there are two countries now. In this context, China’s policy after the separation is a policy of ‘two countries, one system’. The term ‘one system’ means that China has not changed its goal of helping both parties to find a way for development through resolving their disputes. Here we need to reaffirm that the goal of the first stage’s ‘one country, two systems’ policy always puts the economic development at the center stage while disputes resolving simply is one of the preconditions.

In the Chinese eyes, whether the Southern part gains independence or not, economic development is fundamental to the dispute solution. With the independence of the South, now it’s time to shift focus from reconciliation to development by joining hands together. To meet this goal, both sides need to abandon the mindset of zero-sum game through weakening the other party for more reasonable bargaining chips during the negotiations.

However, the reality is that both parties practiced such a wrong win set supported either by furious or victorious passions. On the Sudanese side, accepting the separation of South Sudan is the biggest concession, thus it seems reasonable to hope for greater rewards from the international community and South Sudan in particular. However, supported by victorious passion, South Sudan chose not to reward Sudan and even provoked Sudan with assumption that its support will keep support for it as usual. Thus, a kind of security dilemma is rising. Entering 2012, since the unilateral decision of South Sudan to stop its oil production and not to use oil infrastructure in Sudan and the decision of Sudan to close its border with a ‘shoot-to-kill’ policy for any smugglers of goods to the South, the bilateral relations

① “UN Disappointed China not Arrest Sudanese President, US Content with China,” Ifeng.com, 2 July 2011, http://news.ifeng.com/world/detail_2011_07/02/7394697_0.shtml, 21-11-2012.

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deteriorated and reached the breaking point when South Sudan invaded Heglig and destroyed the oil infrastructure there, which in return agitated the racist attitude of President Bashir and provoked the strong condemnations from the American side who is a longstanding friend of the South. There are lots of stories of this kind in the recent development of this relationship.

China tries hard to persuade the two parties to return to the right track and gain a

real success. Through his shuttle diplomacy, China’s new Special Envoy Ambassador ZHONG Jianhua convinced both sides that they should be sensitive to the expectations of their people and the international community and to take the talks seriously so as to find win-win solutions that would improve their strained relations. China warns both sides that economic costs for lasting conflicts can’t be afforded by two peoples. Generally, the economies of the two countries have been badly affected by their strained relations. While the South has temporarily lost oil revenue that constituted 98% of its budget, Sudan has lost more than 30% of its revenue from oil-related fees from the South, and almost more than 80% of its foreign exchange earnings. Besides, there’re more serious and long-term economic impacts. For example, the monthly inflation rate, which used to be one digit, has reached more than 30% in Sudan and around 25% in the South in the first half of 2012. The exchange rate, which was less than 3 Sudanese Pounds and 3 South Sudanese Pounds per dollar, has reached almost 6 Sudanese Pounds and 5 South Sudanese Pounds in the parallel market during the same period.①

China used wisely its leverages to push Sudan and South Sudan to shift their eyes to rebuild their economy by joining hands together. While Sudan has a better understanding about this, South Sudan needs time to realize it. For example, in the first half of 2012, South Sudan strongly held that the mega project of Lamu-Juba corridor could be the substitute for the pipeline through Sudan port. This policy stance means that South Sudan takes a zero-sum game theory and tries to cut clear with Sudan economically, which is a lose-lose scenario that China does not agree with. That’s why China did not provide supports for this mega project until the two

① Luka Biong Deng, “Strained Sudan-South Sudan Relations: Who pays the price?” Sudantribune, 24 June 2012, http://www.sudantribune.com/Strained-Sudan-South-Sudan,43030.

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parties almost reached oil revenue share agreement in August 2012.①

Either ‘one country, two systems’ or ‘two countries, one system’, China’s real policy goal hasn’t changed a bit, with respecting formal state sovereignty and promoting economic development of Sudan and South Sudan as the core. That is the secrect of the success of China’s African policy in general and two Sudans policy in particular.

 

① “China Welcomes Oil Deal between Sudan, South Sudan,” Xinhua News, 6 August 2012, http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/china/2012-08/06/c_131765167.htm; Jane Perlez, “South Sudan to Get Aid From China; No Oil Deal,” New York Times, 25 April 2012, http://www.nytimes.com/2012/04/26/world/asia/china-to-aid-south-sudan-but-pipeline-efforts-stall.html?_r=0.

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China in the International Conflict-management: Darfur as a Case

JIAN Junbo∗ Due to Chinese typical economic and strategic interests, diplomatic philosophy, cultural and psychological tradition, China’s positions, principles and approaches on the Darfur issue-resolution was somehow different from those of Western countries, which also characterized the conflict-management of China in this issue. This article will review the China’s policy on Darfur issue and analyze the role that China played in it, then generalize this state’s conflict-management approach on international hot issues.

I. Chinese policy over Darfur: from neutrality to engagement Generally, Chinese policy on Darfur issue experienced three stages: indifference, persuasion and actively involvement. This policy change reflected the China’s adherence to its national interests, its care for the international responsibility and the change of international politics. 1. Stage one: indifferent to Sudan’s affair When military conflicts happened in the Western part of Sudan, China didn’t pay much attention to them and even two people were kidnapped in March 2004 in that region. Chinese leaders were successfully persuaded by Sudan government that made Chinese leaders believe what happened in Western Sudan was just local violence that could be controlled by government.

In addition, China refused to sanction Sudan when the UN planed to adopt one US-supported resolution imposing sanction on Sudan. China explained that what was happened in Darfur was not a “racial genocide” but an internal conflict between different tribes who competed for resources.

∗ Dr. JIAN Junbo is Assistant Professor of Fudan University.

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2. Stage two: persuading Sudanese central government to accept the UN’s suggestions However, China’s policy toward Darfur issue had a subtle change from the indifference or neutrality to actively persuading Omar Hassan al-Bashir authority to accept UN’s resolutions.

In August 2004, Lv Guozeng, the Chinese special representative to Darfur, visited Sudan where he confirmed the roles of AU and the League of Arab States (LAS) in dealing with Darfur crisis, and stated China hoped Khartoum could comply with the UN’s resolutions①. He also argued China would provide 5 million Chinese Yuan-valued materials as humanitarian assistance for Darfur crisis.

In November 2006, Chinese Prime Minister Wen Jiabao talk to Bashir in Beijing that China supported the UN’s 1706 resolution, hoped Sudanese government could comprehensively cooperate with international society and implement the UN’s resolution and Darfur Peace Agreement.② Chinese President Hun Jintao, also extended the same message to Bashir, and especially hoped Sudanese government could accept the AU-UN joint peacekeeping force. 3. Stage three: cooperation with international society Since 2006, China took more active action to deal with the Darfur issue through three ways- pressing Sudanese government to accept international resolutions; promoting to build a joint peacekeeping troop; and coordinating with related actors in international society.

-- Pressing Sudanese government

In March 2008, Liu Guijin, the Chinese special representative to Darfur, stated that Sudan’s government must do much more, stopping competing for lands with rebel groups. Meanwhile, China didn’t veto the UN’s 1769 resolution which decided to appoint an UN-led peacekeeping troop to Sudan, working with the AU’s army, yet a joint-troop was opposed by Khartoum.

① In this 1556 resolution, the UN asked Sudan’s government to relieve weapons of Arabian militias in Darfur. ② Wen Jiabao: China-Sudan Relations Are Equal and without any Private Interests, see China’s News website, 3 November 20006, http://www.sina.com.cn http://news.sina.com.cn/c/2006-11-03/202211419625.shtml.

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The pressure to Khartoum also accompanied with Beijing’s balance policy in North Sudan and South Sudan. For instance, it set up a consulate in Juba. Furthermore, China contacted with South Sudan’s leaders of the rebelling groups, e.g., having invited Salva Kiir, the Chairman of Sudan Liberation Movement to visit Beijing two times.

-- Pushing to build joint peacekeeping force in Darfur

In July 2007, Security Council approved the UN’s resolution which decided to send an UN-led peacekeeping troop to Darfur based on “Annan Plan”. Although China abstained from the resolution, this made the resolution effective, and then the joint peacekeeping force quickly became possible. Helped by China, Sudan had to agree to allow a joint peacekeeping to enter Darfur.①

-- Coordinating with international actors

In May 2007, the Chinese special representative to Darfur Liu Guijin visited Africa two times after he was appointed less than two months. He talked with Sudan, the AU, the LAS and some Western powers, coordinating with them to reach some shared positions and resolve the Darfur issue with political dialogues.②

In Beijing’s opinion, not only Khartoum but also those rebelling groups should be imposed pressures. Mr. Liu once said China was pressing Sudan to do more to end the violence, but added that rebel groups also shared responsibility.

He also argued that the UN and AU should together handle those technological issues regarding the deploy of peacekeeping troops; all concerned countries in this region should take cooperative action; and the international society, including Security Council members should work together, without sending wrong messages to Sudan and the rebelling groups.③ He had also complained those rebelling groups were not active to participate in the peace negotiation “is a primary shortage”.④ ① Jim Yardley, China Defends Sudan Policy and Criticizes Olympics Tie-In, The New York Times, March 8, 2008. ② Gu Guoping, Dong Jirong, The Positions and Policies of China and the US on Darfur Issue: Based on Each Official States and Speeches, International Forum, Vol. 1, 2010. ③ Chinese Special Representative to Darfur Hold a Press Conference, see Chinese Foreign Affairs Ministry website: http: / /www1fmp rc1gov. ④ How Far Is Darfur from the Peace? International Herald, 2 November, 2007.see

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For realizing stability and peace, Chinese representative to Darfur had also visited London and Paris, to coordinate with European counterparts. Meanwhile, Chinese representative in the UN also coordinate with other Security Council members in order to put forward a commonly agreed UN resolution.

II. China in the conflict-management on Darfur issue: dynamics, principles and approaches

In Darfur issue-resolution process, China played special roles based on special interests and principles through typical approaches as a different player from other powers, especially the US and the European Union (EU). 1. Dynamics: interests and image Without question, Beijing’s policy toward Darfur and its change is embedded in its typical preference on national interests. Because the deep economic ties with Sudan, China didn’t have the will to destroy the bilateral relationship, joining the international society to against Khartoum when Darfur crisis was happened in the early time.

However, when early crisis swiftly changed into a humanitarian crisis, China was imposed more international pressure and quietly changed its policy. Clearly this change was also resulted from the worry about the lasting violence in Darfur which would harm Chinese enterprises’ interests.

On the other hand, Beijing’s policy alteration is also due to one consideration- image, although this can also considered as a quite typical interests. As a rising power, one of China’s ambitions is to be accepted as one responsible actor in international society. When Darfur crisis escalated, China was challenged by more international criticism, and then had to care about its international image. According to this, China began to cooperate with international society.① 2. Principles: sovereign independence, multilateralism, and development Generally speaking, the principles China used in Darfur issue can classified into three dimensions: sovereign independence, multilateralism and aiming to http://news.sohu.com/20071102/n253021675.shtml. ① Josh Kurlantzick, China, Myanmar and Sudan: Perusable Idea, New Republic, 4 September, 2010.

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development.

The Chinese special representative Liu Guijin had argued that China didn’t agree to deal with regional conflict by force and coerce; and the principle Chinese government adhered was respecting Sudan’s sovereignty and territorial integrity. After China decided to join in the international action for resolving Darfur issue, it adhered to the multilateralism as an important principle. It strengthened all actions aiming at Darfur issue-resolution should be under the UN’s leadership and through multilateral negotiations, dialogues and cooperation, not only among international actors like China, the US, the AU and so on, but also among different political groups in Sudan.①

At the same time, Chinese considered that promoting Sudan’s development was the fundamental and essential principle to reduce the conflict in Darfur, since the poverty and backwardness was the root of the conflict. Zhai Jun, one Chinese special representative to Darfur claimed the essential road to resolution of Darfur issue was to realize the region’s economic reconstruction and development. 3. Approaches: persuasion, cooperation, coordination and political dialogue The approaches that China used in the Darfur issue-resolution are political dialogues or diplomatic means. Liu Guijin had said "there is only one way to solve the problem in Darfur only through dialogue and consultation."② According to this, sanction was not preferred by China, diplomatic approach- persuasion, cooperation, coordination, negotiation and so like these, rather than sanction and unilateral action was the unique way that China choose to use in Darfur issue. Liu Guijin had concluded one of the principles used in Darfur issue was adherence to political approach. ③

① Chinese Representative Explained Chinese Government’s Position over Darfur, see China website, 22 February 2008: www.china.com.cn. ② Gwen Thompkins, Chinese Influence In Sudan Is Subtle, NPR, July 29, 2008: http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=92282540. ③ Wang Yaping, China and Darfur Issue, cited from Carnegie’s Perspective on China, 8 September 2007.

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China’s Role in Sudan and South Sudan Peacekeeping Operations 

XUE Lei∗

I. Overview of the Peace Operations and China’s Contribution Currently, there are three ongoing UN-sponsored peacekeeping operations in the two Sudans. The first is the AU/UN Hybrid Operation in Darfur (UNAMID) established under UN Security Council Resolution 1769 as of 2007, which provided the mandate for a combination of previous African Union Mission in the Sudan (AMIS) and UN support. The second is the United Nations Interim Security Force for Abyei (UNISFA) established under UNSC Resolution 1990 as of 27 June 2011. Its aim is to monitor and verify the redeployment of Sudan governmental armed forces and Sudan People’s Liberation Army (SPLA) from the Abyei Area. The third one is the United Nations Mission in the Republic of South Sudan (UNMISS) established under UNSC Resolution 1996. These three missions manifest different features of UN peace operations. The UNISFA carries on with it the traditional simplistic characteristics of peacekeeping operations, i.e. monitoring relevant parties’ compliance with and implementation of ceasefire agreement. The UNAMID include the hybrid operation of AU and UN to address conflict prevention and peace maintenance work in the Darfur region of Sudan. And the UNMISS is actually a comprehensive peacebuilding and nation-building mission after the independence of South Sudan, which covers a wide range of issues and activities such as security sector reform (SSR), disarmament, demilitarization, and reintegration (DDR), as well as economic development and social reconstruction. The co-existence of three types of peacekeeping operations has again demonstrated the complicatedness of the challenges faced by both Sudan and South Sudan.

As a responsible major power and a country with friendly relations with both of the two countries, China actively participated in the peacekeeping operations in this region. Generally speaking, China’s contribution to peacekeeping operations is manifested in three aspects. First, on the conceptual level, China always sticks to the development-oriented or “development first” policy, which means that the

∗ Xue Lei is research fellow at Shanghai Institutes for International Studies (SIIS).

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peacekeeping operations should be conducted in the way conducive to dealing with the root causes of conflicts and forging solid base for subsequent large-scale rebuilding work. Second, up to now China has only dispatched non-combatant troops to join peacekeeping forces, with engineering corps and medical teams constituting the major components of Chinese peacekeepers. This reflects to some extent China’s worry about the situation of peacekeeping troops being endowed with too much power of using force. Yet in practice the non-combatant feature of Chinese peacekeepers has become a unique advantage and contribution to peacekeeping operations. Chinese peacekeepers have completed large-scale economic and social reconstruction work for the local community, including the building of basic infrastructure such as roads, bridges, water supply facilities, etc.. The hospital established by Chinese medical team also contributed a lot to the health of local people. Such work has actually made a great contribution to the early recovery of conflict-affected local community and laid a solid foundation for the subsequent comprehensive rebuilding process. Third, aside from its role of a troop contributing country (TCC), China also works as a police contributing country (PCC) in this region. The riot police or civilian police dispatched constitutes an indispensable part of the process of restoration of justice and order in the local community. The engagement of Chinese police staff with local police staff is also much helpful to capacity building in local police institution and personnel. In a word, China is fulfilling its promise of being a genuine and responsible partner of the two countries through its active role in the relevant peacekeeping operations.

II. China’s Policy Considerations in Participating in Peace Operations

China’s deeper involvement into UN peacekeeping operations will inevitably lead to a comprehensive change in the UN conflict management system. First, the power configuration in the decision-making and implementation process of UN peacekeeping operations may experience great transformation. With the western security apparatus dominated by the US tilting more towards the war on terror and the subsequent campaigns to suppressing the insurgents in Iraq and Afghanistan since the 9/11 terrorist attack, the involvement of western countries in UN-led peacekeeping operations has been sharply weakened, especially in the African continent which has long been one of the focal areas of UN peacekeeping operations. The immediate consequence of this strategic shift of western countries’ policies is the aggravated problems of shortage of military personnel, resources, and equipments, in particular the shortage of some critical equipments such as the

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transport helicopters, which has become a significant bottleneck constraining the implementation of peacekeeping operations. Against this backdrop, the growing involvement of emerging countries including China, Brazil, South Africa, Nigeria, Ethiopia, etc. will be conducive to the mitigation of constraints the UN now faces. And such a kind of gradually growing contribution to UN peacekeeping operations by emerging countries will definitely be followed with the change of power configuration in international conflict management system. Second, with the rising complexity of both the international and domestic environment for peacekeeping operations, the differences surrounding the guiding peacekeeping principles also loom large. The so-called PKO Three Principles include the following points: (1) impartiality (neutrality); (2) consent of relevant governments or parties; and (3) use of force limited to circumstances of self-defense. These principles have been the guiding principles and remain the cornerstone of UN PKOs. However, the western countries have endeavored to expand the scope of conflict situations applicable to peacekeeping operations, with the intention of including confrontational conflict situation into the scope of peacekeeping operations so as to expand the power of peacekeeping forces in terms of using force. And the emerging powers insist that peacekeeping operations should remain in the field of neutral stance to prevent escalation of inter-state or intra-state conflicts. The peacekeeping forces should not have too large scope of power in terms of using force and interfering into internal affairs of host states. With the growing influence of China and other emerging powers on coordinative work and decision-making process of peacekeeping operations, it’s hoped that the confused or even inappropriate situation in relation to norms and principles of peacekeeping may be clarified or corrected. Third, the UN-sponsored peacekeeping operations also provided China with the means and channels to exert influence. As an emerging power in current times, the path for China’s rise is definitely completely different from the rising paths of the old powers. In terms of management and resolution of international conflicts, China’s role is manifested more in the use of UN-led multilateral platforms, the focus on political and diplomatic measures, and the stress on involvement and consent of all relevant parties. The UN-sponsored peacekeeping and peacebuilding processes are the most appropriate for the above-mentioned China’s policy considerations. Therefore, in the future we may see more of this mutually-enhancing relation from the interaction between China and UN peace operations.

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The EU and the Sudans  

Dame Rosalind Marsden∗ As EU Special Representative, I have a wide ranging mandate from EU Foreign Ministers covering all aspects of EU policy towards Sudan and South Sudan. At the core of this mandate is the promotion of peace and stability in Sudan and South Sudan. This is one of the European Union's top priorities in Africa.

Both Sudan and South Sudan face considerable challenges. These continue to cause human suffering as well as instability and insecurity in the wider region. The conflict in Darfur continues, with 1.7 million Darfuris still living in IDP camps and 300,000 in refugee camps in Chad. The fighting that erupted in Southern Kordofan and Blue Nile states in 2011 has caused large-scale civilian casualties, displacement and an exodus of over 240,000 refugees into South Sudan and Ethiopia. More than 100,000 people have been displaced from Abyei. Inter-communal clashes in South Sudan, particularly in Jonglei state, have also resulted in displacement and loss of civilian life.

In order to address these challenges, EU Foreign Ministers decided last year to pursue a Comprehensive Approach to Sudan and South Sudan. This is designed to promote the emergence of two viable, stable and prosperous states. The EU is using a wide range of instruments - political, diplomatic, development assistance, security and stabilisation, and human rights, as well as humanitarian assistance - in a more coherent and joined-up fashion.

A cornerstone of the Comprehensive Approach has been to support the African Union's mediation efforts between Sudan and South Sudan. The EU has lent political, financial and technical support to the AU High-Level Implementation Panel (AUHIP), led by former President Thabo Mbeki. The EU also welcomed the clear leadership demonstrated by the AU Peace and Security Council, in particular when it adopted the AU Roadmap on 24 April, subsequently endorsed by the UN Security Council in Resolution 2046. My team and I have been present in Addis Ababa during the negotiations between Sudan and South Sudan in order to support the AUHIP. ∗ H.E. Dame Rosalind Marsden is EU Special Representative for Sudan and South Sudan.

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I also coordinate closely with key regional players and Special Envoys from the UN, US, and Norway, and, of course, my Chinese counterpart. This coordination, together with the strong lead given by the AU, has ensured an unprecedented degree of international consensus that has been indispensable to making progress in resolving the outstanding issues.

The Addis talks culminated in the signing of nine agreements by Sudan and South in Addis Ababa on 27 September. These agreements represent a major step towards normalising relations between the two countries. The implementation of the agreements will benefit the people of both countries. The EU stands ready to support the implementation process.

While the agreements are a great achievement, the critical issues of the final status of Abyei, the disputed and claimed border areas and the conflict in Southern Kordofan and Blue Nile states remain unresolved. Resolving these issues is essential for full normalisation of relations between Sudan and South Sudan and for full implementation of the AU Roadmap and UN Security Council Resolution 2046. The EU supports the clear lead given by the African Union.

The EU remains gravely concerned about the fighting in Southern Kordofan and Blue Nile states and the serious humanitarian situation this has caused. The EU has repeatedly insisted on immediate access for international humanitarian agencies to all civilians affected by the conflict. It is also imperative that the Government of Sudan and SPLM/North engage immediately in direct talks in order to reach a cessation of hostilities and a political settlement on the basis of the 28 June 2011 Framework Agreement and with a view to an inclusive national dialogue that meets the needs and aspirations of all Sudanese citizens within an open and democratic framework. There can be no military solution to this conflict.

Darfur is also an issue of major concern for the EU. The security situation in Darfur is serious with an increased threat of physical violence to civilians from armed groups, inter-communal tensions, aerial bombing and fighting between forces of the Government and the armed movements, particularly in North Darfur. The EU is concerned about continuing restrictions on humanitarian access in some parts of Darfur, including the eastern Jebel Marra, and on UNAMID's freedom of movement, particularly to areas of recent conflict. Forty seven UNAMID peacekeepers have been killed in Darfur but none of the perpetrators has yet been brought to justice.

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Also in the case of Darfur, dialogue and negotiations are necessary to resolve the conflict. That is why the EU welcomed the Doha Document for Peace in Darfur (DDPD) signed in May 2011 as the basis for reaching a comprehensive and inclusive peace. The EU has urged the signatory Parties to redouble their efforts to achieve rapid and tangible progress in implementing the DDPD.

The EU remains strongly committed to helping the people of Darfur. We will continue to demonstrate that commitment through our support for the peace process; and political and financial support for UNAMID to fulfil its protection of civilians mandate (EU Member States fund 45% of UNAMID's budget through their assessed contributions to the UN). The EU is also funding a large humanitarian assistance programme, including support for some early recovery activities. The EU would like to do more to help but our ability to do so depends on progress in three areas: access for international humanitarian and development workers, security and implementation of the DDPD.

The EU is committed to promoting democratisation, good governance and human rights. The EU supports the promotion by the African Union of a holistic approach to the quest for peace, justice and reconciliation and the need to prioritise democratisation in both Sudan and South Sudan as a sine qua non for stability and equitable governance. Local civil society groups in both Sudan and South Sudan have an essential role to play in this endeavour. The EU is a strong supporter of civil society organisations in both countries.

Besides our political engagement, humanitarian and development assistance is a core part of our engagement in both Sudans. Since 2005, the EU has committed development assistance of over 650 million euros to South Sudan. Since 2010, the EU has committed 285 million euros to developing the following sectors: education, health, agriculture, food security and democratic governance. The EU has also deployed a Common Security and Defence Policy mission in order to strengthen security at Juba Airport.

Development assistance to Sudan is more limited given the Government of Sudan's decision not to ratify the revised Cotonou Agreement. Even so, in 2011 the EU provided around 47 million euros to vulnerable populations in conflict-affected areas in the agriculture, health, and education sectors. In 2012, the EU provided 10 million euros for agriculture and basic services in North and South Darfur.

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Humanitarian assistance continues to be another core strand of the EU's policy towards Sudan and South Sudan. There are still considerable humanitarian needs in both countries. The EU's humanitarian programme for the two Sudans is one of the largest EU humanitarian programmes in the world. The European Commission's budget for Sudan and South Sudan towards the end of 2012 was 127 million euros.

The EU will remain closely engaged in Sudan and South Sudan and will continue to work with our international partners to promote two stable, democratic and prosperous states.

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Development through Peace: Could China’s Economic Cooperation with South Sudan Be More Conflict-sensitive?  Thomas Wheeler∗ While China has already provided some development aid, it is likely that in the future it will be a source of considerably more financial assistance to the Government of South Sudan (GoSS), especially for the construction of infrastructure.① This holds substantial promise for post-conflict reconstruction and economic development in the world’s newest nation. However, on-going insecurity remains a significant obstacle. For many of South Sudan’s people, the absence of a peace dividend is perhaps one of the biggest post-independence disappointments. Alongside the continued tensions with its northern neighbour, inter-community conflicts have escalated to alarming levels, taking lives, displacing families and wreaking humanitarian havoc. This insecurity prevents the delivery of important development projects and deters commercial investment. It is widely accepted that development cannot occur in conditions of heightened conflict and insecurity. The World Bank notes that no low-income fragile or conflict-affected country has yet to achieve a single Millennium Development Goal.②

While insecurity might restrict economic growth, the reverse is also true: economic engagement, no matter how well-intentioned, can inadvertently fuel conflict. Explaining China’s economic co-operation with a pre-secession Sudan that was ‘mired with conflict’, some Chinese officials espoused the theory of ‘peace through development’. However, as is acknowledged in China, the reality of economic co-operation presents a far more complex picture.③ For example, while Sudan saw GDP growth figures above 10 percent in 2006 and 2007, the country was far from peaceful in that period.

∗ Thomas Wheeler is Project Coordinator, Saferworld. ① Saferworld China and South Sudan Saferworld Briefing (2012). Also see International Crisis Group China’s New Courtship in South Sudan Africa Report 186 (2012). ② World Bank, World Bank Development Report 2011. ③ Saferworld China and conflict-affected states (2012) and Large, D Between the CPA and Southern Independence: China’s Post-Conflict Engagement in Sudan (2012) SAIIA, Occasional Paper No.115.

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Chinese state banks, and Chinese companies, have long been big players in Sudanese infrastructure development, funding and building railway tracks, water pipelines, electricity grids, ports and bridges. As the largest consumer of Sudanese oil, and the biggest shareholder in its oil blocks, China National Petroleum Corporation (CNPC) made significant investments in the infrastructure required to extract it. Much of this economic co-operation between China and pre-secession Sudan likely brought real and tangible benefits for development and, ultimately, some people’s wellbeing.

Nonetheless, it could never be totally isolated from a context of conflict which was (and remains) so common to Sudan. In some cases, China’s economic role may have inadvertently exacerbated the pre-existing factors that drive conflict. For example, Chinese dam construction projects were reportedly associated with displacement and violent protest in regions where political relations were already tense.① The creation of Sudan’s oil infrastructure, including roads, was associated with extremely high levels of violence between the Sudanese security services, armed groups and civilians in oil-rich areas. As argued by one South Sudanese politician, this history remains a major hurdle in China-South Sudan relations.②

Large scale development assistance to South Sudan may come to address one major criticism that is common among officials and civil society in the country,which is that, before independence, the benefits of economic co-operation with China – including infrastructure development and jobs – overwhelmingly favoured the North. “They say they have built things – hospitals and schools –but this is in the North, not in the South,” summarises one South Sudanese observer.③ Feelings of marginalisation from economic development underpinned armed rebellion down the path of succession for many Southerners. A substantial boost in Chinese economic engagement in South Sudan may go some way to redressing these feelings. In this way, as Chinese officials and academics have long argued, economic engagement can positively address root causes of conflict. But another fact also becomes evident: perceptions of where, and to whom, the benefits of economic co-operation are distributed matters more for stability than whether it is ① For example see: Bosshard P, ‘New Chinese dam project to fuel ethnic conflict in Sudan,’ Huffington Post, 26 January 2011, and: ‘UN expert urges Sudan to respect human rights of communities affected byhydro-electric dam projects,’ Sudan Tribune, 28 August2007. ② Deng L, ‘South Sudan: China – a strategic partner of the new nation,’ Sudan Tribune, 16 April 2012. ③ Saferworld interview, Unity State, South Sudan, August 2011.

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delivered at all.

These are obviously extremely complex issues raising difficult questions about responsibility: was it Chinese companies, or warring parties that turned oil fields into battlefields? Is it Chinese state banks who should decide whether, where and how an infrastructure project is implemented, or the national government in whose country it is being built? If people are displaced, who should ensure that they have new homes to go to? And who is it that should decide where the fruits of economic development go?

Clearly, there are no straight forward answers. Of course the GoSS holds primary responsibility in ensuring that assistance from China is shared equally between the country’s people, that development is catalysed and that conflict is not exacerbated. But in order for Chinese officials and companies to support such efforts, they must acknowledge that economic co-operation will potentially have an impact on the high levels of violent conflict in South Sudan and – at the very least – take concrete measures to ensure that no harm is done.

One way in which to meet this objective is through adopting the three steps of conflict sensitivity. First, Chinese actors involved in economic co-operation should understand the conflict context through consulting with all the stakeholders – including the GoSS, state governments, politicians, civil society groups, elders and local communities. Second, based on this understanding they should identify how their engagement might impact on conflict by conducting a thorough risk analysis before starting a project. Third, they should use this information to minimise negative impacts and promote positive ones, working closely with the host government and other involved actors. However, in some cases, the risks may simply outweigh the benefits, meaning that the whole project should be reconsidered.

For Chinese companies, in both the infrastructure and extractive sectors, conflict sensitive approaches offer significant benefits for risk management in a dangerous environment. Better understanding the operating environment and seeking acceptance from local communities and conflict actors maybe less costly and more effective than relying exclusively on armed protection from state security services, who are very often targets themselves. For the Chinese government, applying conflict sensitivity to its development co-operation can be a way to co-ordinate and achieve its FOCAC commitments for peacebuilding and contributing to

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post-conflict development. For both Chinese commercial actors and the government, the approach will help guard against reputational costs that will be felt far beyond South Sudan.

Future economic co-operation with China can potentially boost development in South Sudan. It is clear that this is conditional on stability. It is for South Sudan’s government, politicians and civil society to achieve peace and security. Outsiders cannot do this for them; they can only support their efforts. Through reflection on China’s role in the recent past, Chinese decision-makers can ensure that how they choose to help in the future is in line with peace and development.

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China, Sudan and South Sudan Relations Leben Nelson Moro∗

Introduction The arrival in the old Sudan① of Chinese oil companies in the 1990s and the signing of the Comprehensive Peace Agreement (CPA) between President Omer al Bashir’s government and the Sudan People’s Liberation Movement/ Army (SPLM/A) in 2005 greatly shaped the relations between China, Sudan and South Sudan. With expanding investments, and increasing demands to secure them, China upped its relations with the old Sudan.

Three phases of relations are discernible: the first was a period of low key ties before the arrival of Chinese oil companies; the second was characterized by substantial ties with al Bashir’s government; and the third was marked by continued expansion of ties with al Bashir’s government and cultivation of relations with the leaders of SPLM/A. It is argued that Chinese relations with the old Sudan as well as Sudan and South Sudan blossomed mainly due to mutual interest in development of oil resources. Given that the development of oil resources is a political matter, China’s oft-stated policy of non-interference and no-strings attached has been questioned. In this article, the reasons for this will be analyzed.

Low key relations

The old Sudan was among the first countries to recognize the People’s Republic of China in 1959. Relations increased after President Jaafar Nimeiri (1969-1985) visited China in 1970. During the visit, he asked for help in several areas but was reportedly advised to turn to the US for assistance with oil prospecting as China did not have the right technology.②

∗ Dr. Leben Nelson Moro is the Director of External Relations at the University of Juba, South Sudan, and teaches at the University’s Center for Peace and Development Studies. ① Old Sudan refers to the united Sudan before the secession of the Southern region on 9 July 2011. ② Ali Abdalla Ali “The Sudanese-Chinese Relations: Before and After Oil”, Khartoum, Sudan, 2006, p. 47.

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Trade and assistance increased. In 1973, for example, 26 percent of old Sudan’s cotton exports went to China, representing 13.6 percent of total exports.① Besides cotton, the old Sudan sold gum arabic, oil seeds and other goods. It imported textiles, building materials and light industry machinery. Moreover, China gave loans to the old Sudan on easy terms, which led to the establishment of a number of projects, such as the Friendship Palace, Hassa Heissa Friendship Textile Mill and Bridge on Blue Nile. Its ties had no-strings attached. However, they were really more “symbolic than politically consequential”.②

President Nimeiri turned to US companies for support with the search for oil. In 1978, Chevron discovered oil in the Unity State of Southern Sudan. At that time, Nimeiri was building ties with Middle Eastern countries close to the US, which was keen to contain the regime of Gaddafi of Libya and that of Menguistu of Ethiopia. Chevron rapidly built infrastructure to exploit the oil. It planned for pipelines from the oil fields to Port Sudan. By 1986 oil was supposed to reach international markets. However, this was thwarted by SPLA attacks. In 1985, Nimeiri was overthrown.

In 1992, Chevron wound down its activities under US pressure and SPLA threats. The US banned engagement by American companies with the oil sector in 1997, accusing the government of Al Bashir, which came to power in 1989, of abusing human rights and supporting terrorists, including Osama bin Laden. This was to mark a new pace of Chinese involvement in the old Sudan.

Expanding relations

China’s relations with the old Sudan grew. Like Nimeiri, al Bashir travelled to China in 1995 to request help with development of oil resources. This time around China accepted as it had the technology and interest. It needed oil from abroad to sustain economic growth. In 1993 China had gone from being a net exporter of oil to a net importer.

In 1996, despite the SPLA threat, China National Petroleum Company (CNPC) acquired interests in the old Sudan. Petronas from Malaysia, where al Bashir ① Ibid, p.14. ② Dan Large, “China’s Sudan Engagement: Changing Northern and Southern Political Trajectories in Peace and War,” The China Quarterly, 2009, p.613.

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attended military school, also entered into the country. Indian companies later joined. Together, they took over oil operations and continued from where Chevron left off. The atmosphere of conflict, which discouraged risk-averse Western companies, worked in their favor as competition was low.①

In 1999, the old Sudan exported oil for the first time. Six years later, production reached nearly 500,000 barrels per day. In 2007, oil revenues were estimated at 4 billion US dollars, and economic growth exceeded 10 per cent. China also reaped huge benefits. It satisfied eight percent of its oil needs with supplies originating from Sudan.②

This achievement had to be protected from the SPLA and other threats, however. China supported Sudan to secure oil flow. It used its veto to protect al Bashir’s regime in the UN Security Council from sanctions. It also supplied arms, which were used to secure oil installations.③

Clearly, relations were characterized by mutual benefit for al Bashir’s regime, China and its oil companies.④However, the move towards peace within the country, which was being pushed by the US and other Western countries, could destabilize them.

Balancing relations

In 2005, the regime of al Bashir and the SPLM/A signed the CPA. Without US pressure this agreement would not have been reached. China quickly established ties with SPLM/A leaders as they were going to control most of the oil fields from which Chinese and other companies extracted oil.

Broadly, this experience raised questions about China’s policy of dealing only with governments. Traditionally, the state in China is strong and the driver of social

① International Crisis Group “God, Oil and Country: Changing the Logic of War in Sudan,” Africa Report, No. 39, 2002. ② Leben Nelson Moro, “Oil, Conflict and Displacement in Sudan,” DPhil thesis, University of Oxford, 2008. ③ S.L. Field, “The Civil War in Sudan: The Role of the Oil Industry,” IUD Ocassional Paper, Braamfontein, South Africa. ④ Daniel Large and Luke Patey, “Caught in the Middle: China and India in Sudan’s Transition” DIIS Working paper, p.6.

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change. The big companies are owned by the state and work closely with the government. There are no significant NGOs. Accordingly, China focuses on building relations with other states.

The case of the old Sudan, Sudan and South Sudan posed challenges for this policy. China built good relations with al Bashir’s regime which was pursuing devastating wars in the south and later in Darfur. China avoided establishing relations with the rebels in the south who were to become the leaders of South Sudan. Other countries dealt with the SPLM/A before coming to power. So, China was to play catching up when the SPLM/A came to power after 2005.

China has been trying hard to build equal relations with the leaders of the South and North, which separated in 2011. It has been doing well in this respect. However, China might learn from the past and not limited its future engagement only to government leaders, particularly unpopular ones like al Bashir, but also engage with other players, such as civil society actors and opponents of those in power. Dissidents or rebels of today might become the leaders of tomorrow!

Conclusion

China’s relations with the old Sudan evolved from low to high engagement since the 1950s. Crucial in this transformation was the role played by oil companies that helped President al Bashir’s regime to exploit oil resources. However, this development posed a significant challenge to China’s oft-stated policy of non-interference in the internal affairs of other countries. In fact, development of oil resources has always been a political issue with close links to internal political developments.

The conclusion of the Comprehensive Peace Agreement in 2005 meant that China had to deal with SPLM/A leaders who were to rule the Southern region, which broke away in 2011 to form the Republic of South Sudan. Belatedly, China forged relations with the new leaders so that oil companies could continue their operations. It is trying to balance relations with Sudanese leaders and South Sudanese leaders. However, it should consider engaging with other actors such as civil society leaders.

Winter 2012 27

The history of South Sudan’s Chinese future

Daniel Large∗ The creation of ties between South Sudan and China has been one of the more striking aspects of recent Sudanese politics and international relations. China’s new Juba consulate, opened in September 2008, came months before February 2009 and the start of an extended series of celebrations commemorating the Golden Jubilee fiftieth anniversary of the establishment of official diplomatic China-Sudan relations.

Now, after South Sudan’s independence in July 2011, swift diplomatic recognition by China and the formal opening of Juba’s embassy in Beijing in April 2012, China-South Sudan relations are topical. Taking a step back from the heat of the immediate moment, however, this article considers the question of how should we think about the history of South Sudan’s Chinese future. It does so via some broad thematic points, and locates these relations in historical time, both in terms of history as it has happened to date and is in the process of unfolding today.

A new history

China’s history of its Sudan future has only very recently come to encompass the de facto and then the de jure reality of two Sudans. When relations between Sudan and China changed from ‘traditional’ to ‘strategic’ after 1989, this reinforced the dominance of a northern-centric political geography of relations. This, of course, carried an official narrative and a sanctioned history of its own, which continued its own version of a history of Sudan’s future China relations that had been forged in the nineteenth century. This is when the founding mythology of the colonial bridge linking Sudan and China began.

∗ Dan Large is Research Director of Africa Asia Centre, SOAS, University of London.

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The Historical Mythology of China-Sudan Relations: Questioning Genesis

The first area concerns the unique historic links between Sudan and China, which have provided generations with a historical narrative on which to base relations. As seen, for example, during Premier Zhou Enlai’s state visit to Khartoum in 1964, these have been fashioned into a colourful narrative distilled into the form of the perfect anti-hero, Chinese Gordon, who was viewed as a bridge linking Sudan and China.①

Gordon, who took part in the capture of Peking (Beijing) in 1860 and commanded the Chinese force that quashed the Taiping Rebellion (1863-1864), was shot to death in 1885 by ‘a very tall black Sudanese’.② The meaning of ‘Sudanese’ from around the mid-nineteenth century was associated with the black peoples of Southern Sudan and the Nuba mountains, who were recruited into the Egyptian army then controlling Sudan or the slave armies of northern Sudanese traders.③

The upshot is that it is likely that the founding myth of Sudan-China relations is based upon the actions of a Southern Sudanese. For a history appropriated by successive ruling elites in Khartoum, and in view of Southern Sudan’s comparative lack of a meaningful history of Chinese connections until recent years, this might provide a subversive twist and the basis of a new historical connection between South Sudan and China. In an important sense, however, the Mahdist rebellion united disparate groups of Sudan’s peripheries into a common purpose. In this way, it makes little sense to reattribute a Southern identity to this founding episode. However, politics always appropriates and reinterprets history to its own ends.

Before and after the January 2011 referendum, efforts were made to strengthen the basis of China’s relations with the GOSS. As well as the better covered

① See Richard Hill, “The Gordon Literature,” The Durham University Journal,Vol. 47, 1955, p. 97. ② J.A.R.Reid, “The death of Gordon,” Sudan Notes and Records Vol. XX (1937), p. 173. Available in www.sudanarchive.net. ③ Johnson, “The Death of Gordon,” op cit., footnote 51. p.309.

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economic diplomacy or high-level political missions, the Chinese consulate and later its Embassy made active efforts to demonstrate a continuity of socio-cultural links between China and South Sudan. One dynamic appeared to be a desire to compensate for the recognised imbalance in China’s relations with Sudan founded in Khartoum; a necessary adaptation and one that has paved the way for greater links between Juba and Beijing.

China and Southern Sudan’s Economic Development

The second area concerns the current significance that China is now being accorded to independent South Sudan’s development prospects, which evokes a very different form of historical interest. One history of Sudan’s China future from the nineteenth century foresaw a prominent Chinese role in economic development. In the late nineteenth century, various schemes were devised – and some implemented – predicated upon the superiority of Chinese labour in opening up Central Africa to more effective European resource exploitation.①

In certain respects, ‘the Chinese’ have long been associated with schemes of improvement, bound up in imaginaries of modernising projects using outside labour. Such projections were by no means confined to nineteenth century Egyptian-governed Sudan. Since 2005, and the entry of the first Chinese entrepreneurs who pioneered business ventures outside the oil sector in Southern Sudan after (and even before) the CPA, an independent Chinese role has been unfolding. Emin Pasha would be intrigued and, conceivably, feel partly vindicated, even if this is of a qualitatively different kind of engagement than he envisaged.

The Weight of the Past: a Mixed Legacy

The mutual ignorance that formerly existed in China about South Sudan and vice versa was long conspicuous. Overcoming the history of the war years and the ① He wrote in May 1881 “that if it is possible for Central Africa to be opened up, it can only be accomplished by means of the Chinese?” Schweinfurth, G. F. Ratzel, R.W. Felkin and G. Hartlaub eds., Emin Pasha in Central Africa: being a collection of his letters and journals (London: George Philip and Son, 1888), pp. 417, 419.

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legacy of China’s role in Sudan’s North-South and South-South civil wars after the 1989 NIF coup remains a challenge in relations going forward. Because of Beijing’s strong and multifaceted support for Khartoum it is understandable that there were and remain strong feelings about China. However, China’s adept diplomacy and the SPLM’s savvy incorporation of China into its own political agenda during the CPA – using China not just in its domestic struggle with the NCP but also in its international diplomacy – demonstrated how at the elite level pragmatism founded in mutual interest trumped this history, opening a new historic phase.

South Sudan – China relations have been reset in political terms, though recent oil politics have not been easy or straightforward and the legacy of the past is mixed. The war years will continue to inform perceptions of China in South Sudan, especially for those in the oil producing areas. At the same time, China’s history of support to Southern Sudan after 1972 and more recent attempts to be more cooperative with independent South Sudan through various gestures of assistance, and the processes to enhance mutual understanding point toward a better future.

Conclusion

South Sudan’s relations with China were born and baptised in political fire. That looks likely to continue, despite the September 2012 agreement on oil and security related matters between Sudan and South Sudan. The history of South Sudan’s China future remains bound up in Sudan’s relations with China and the continuing reality, albeit a contested on subject to ongoing violence, of two importantly inter-related and inter-dependent countries.

Today’s expectations that China can deliver in South Sudan where others have failed hark back to the likes of Emin Pasha and the transformative visions centred on (controlled) Chinese agency. Given the enormity of South Sudan’s development needs today, a hopeful but cautious realism should thus temper any notion of China’s ingrained advantage or superiority; recent years have shown that China is just as subject to the constraints of operating in South Sudan as any other investor. The history of South Sudan’s China future will likely become important if current trends continue, but this scenario depends upon this future history being made.

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Transition and Upgrading of China’s Diplomatic Planning in the First Decade of the New Century

CHEN Dongxiao∗

“China’s general diplomatic planning is increasingly enriching and improving to have formed a diplomatic framework, in which diplomatic working at the levels of states, regions and realms complement and reinforce each other, bilateralism and multilateralism combine, and political, economic and cultural diplomacies interact, having omnidirectionally advanced China’s diplomatic working”, wrote PRC Foreign Minister Yang Jiechi on the magazine Seek Truth in October 2012 in reviewing the diplomatic achievement China accomplished in the last decade.① To this author, this omnidirectional diplomatic planning is by connotation: a, to continually advance the construction of a new-type great power relations on cooperation and dynamically balanced; b, to build up a new, periphery order driven by the strategic upgrading of the good-neighborly relationship and motivated by the goal of the commonwealth of interest; c, to underscore a mutually beneficial development with developing countries; and d, to strengthen a new posture of global cooperation and governance based on “co-governance” and “sharing responsibilities, expanding common interests and seeking win-win outcomes”. The omnidirectional diplomatic planning has accelerated the transition and upgrading of China’s diplomacy in terms of mindset, capability and vision, and laid down the direction of the diplomatic planning for the next decade.

I. Call on New-type Diplomatic Thinking

The effort to break through the diplomatic stereotype and to foster a new-type diplomacy will boost China’s diplomatic transition and upgrading in the first decade of the new century. It is the most important innovation of the new-type diplomacy--the peace and development strategy with Chinese characteristics--to have recognized the general trend of globalization and multi-polarization and broken through the traditional theories of international relations and traditional

∗ Prof. CHEN Dongxiao is Deputy Director of Shanghai Institutes for International Studies (SIIS). ① Yang Jiechi, “Review and Outlook of China’s Diplomacy in the Last Decade”, Seek Truth, no.20, 2012.

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mindset regarding the rise of big powers.① The innovations were carried out in China’s diplomatic planning that can be outlined in two aspects as follows:

1. The new-type partnership viewpoint is applied in building the strategic mutual

trust and balanced development of big powers. China has constantly placed the big-power relations on the key position of the diplomatic chessboard. With the end of Cold War and the evolution of the globalization, China’s big-power diplomacy has experienced deep transition, i.e., China is building a new-type big-power relationship axised on cooperation and with general and dynamic equilibrium. The transition is based on China’s recognition of the substantial change of the international configuration and big-power relations.

First, the scope of the big-power diplomacy is broadened. China is following the

waves of newly emerging powers and multipolarization of international power structure in general and, in particular, China is extending its big-power diplomacy from the traditional Western-power orientation to the newly-emerging-power orientation, since the newly-emerging-powers are rising in a grouped and mushroomed fashion, which is altering the Western-centric international power structure that lasted for the last 500 years. On this basis, China further called for building an inclusive big-power network including traditional powers, emerging powers and regional powers, and “China stands ready to work with others, developed and developing countries together, on the basis of universally recognized norms of international law and multilateral decision making, to deal with the challenges and the opportunities before the world today.” ②

China not only rejects the concept of“G2”,③ but also dismisses the Cold War

mentality of confrontation between different alliances and “sowing discord” to strengthen exclusive and even confrontational military alliance systems.④ In the realm of security, “China should work for common security in a spirit of democracy, inclusiveness, cooperation and win-win progress. Internal affairs of a country

① Qiu Yuanping, “Successful Exploration of China’s Peaceful Development Road”, Seek Truth, no.20, 2012. ② BRICS Partnership for Global Stability, Security and Prosperity, Delhi Declaration, 9 March 2012, http://www.fmprc.gov.cn/chn/gxh/zlb/smgg/t918949.htm. ③ Remarks by State Councilor Dai Bingguo at the Joint Press Conference of the Fourth Round of the China-U.S.Strategic and Economic Dialogue. ④ China's Peaceful Development, Information Office of the State Council, September 2011, Beijing, 2011/09/29.

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should be handled independently by the country itself and international affairs should be managed collectively through consultation by all. We should be committed to multilateralism and international cooperation, and promote democracy in international relations.”① These assumptions reflect the new thinking by which China is actively making plans and arrangements to form a omnidirectional, dynamically balanced big-power diplomatic network and to place the priority of the big-power diplomacy on advancing a just, fair and effective global governance framework.

Second, the connotation of big-power diplomacy is re-examined. Competitive

cooperation as an idea has become the main axis among big powers, especially between traditional and emerging powers, vis-a-vis the traditional big-power relations featuring strategic confrontation and even military conflict, a commonplace in history. On the surface, competitive cooperation manifests competition and cooperation that are complicatedly interwoven, inter-gamed and mutually impacted, where cooperation is conducted within competition and vice versa; cooperation is true but impacted by competition, and competition is restrained by cooperation. In fact, with competitive cooperation, big-power relations is undergoing historical transformation, i.e., in treating their relations big powers resort less to force, violence, coercion and war, and they instead pursue competitions in economic, systematic, normative and developmental models to secure comparative advantage and take on strategic dialogue and policy coordination to manage their divergence and even conflict, and they only strengthen their cooperation if they face challenges and security threats in common.②

It is true that competitive cooperation is by no means free of conflicts among big

powers, including security dilemmas and even strategic mutual suspicions to varying degrees, especially the historically left-over territorial disputes and disputes of territorial seas, which remain a sensitive security issue at present day. Big powers are far from stopping their scrambling for geopolitical and geo-economic advantages. Gaps in ideologies and value systems are still the major obstacles to the

①“Broad Vision, Shared Prosperity” Remarks by President Hu Jintao at the BRICS Leaders Meeting, Sanya, 14 April 2011. ②According to the 2009 statistics of Stockholm International Peace Research Institute, inter-state conflicts declined greatly in number to compare with other periods of history, see: Stockholm International Peace Research Institute, SIPRI Yearbook，Oxford University Press,

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strategic mutual trust among big powers. However, in contrast to those in other historical periods, the present big-power relations involve a complex posture featuring “agreement with differences” and “rivalry without conflict”.① China believes that profound physical, conceptual and mechanical incentives can be identified behind the present big-power competitive cooperation. By physical incentive, it means that the world is getting smaller and has become a "global village"; Countries are more closely linked and interdependent with their interests more closely integrated than ever before; to some extent, the world has become a community of interests; those selfish practices of conquering or threatening others by force, or seeking development space and resources by non-peaceful means are losing ground.② By conceptual incentive, it means that the globalization evolves to boost the historical transition of international agendas. In the words of President Hu Jintao, “We should view security in a broader perspective. Security is not a zero-sum game, and there is no isolated or absolute security. No country can be safe and stable in the absence of peace and stability of the world peace and regions.”③ China insists that no big power can be immune from those global security threats, nor can it cope with them alone. Policy coordination and collective cooperation have become the only option for all big powers in response to the increasingly severe transnational and global challenges.④ This historical trend in turn has boosted the influence of the new security concepts of cooperative security, common security and relative security in the international community. Mechanism incentive refers to the trend that big-power coordination mechanism and norm-setting have made much greater progress today than it did in the Cold War period or earlier. In addition to the formal international multilateral coordination institutions, various and frequent, high-level bilateral strategic dialogues have been built among big powers, so did various smaller multilateral and multilateral dialogues to step up policy coordination and strategic communication.

Third, re-orientation of new-type big-power relations. It has become a key to

China’s big-power diplomatic transition to explore new-type big-power relations

① China Institutes of Contemporary International Relations (CICIR), International Strategy and Security Review-2011/1012, Shishi Publication House, 2010, p.9. ② China's Peaceful Development, Information Office of the State Council, September 2011, Beijing, 2011/09/29. ③ Statement by President Hu Jintao at the General Debate of the 64th Session of the UN General Assembly, New York, 23 September 2009. ④ China's Peaceful Development, Information Office of the State Council, September 2011, Beijing, 2011/09/29.

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now that big-power diplomacy is widened in its scope and that their competition-cooperation is increasingly complicated. China’s big-power diplomacy faces three tests throughout the new historical period. Test one is how China can transcend the stereotype of “zero-sum game” and “confrontation” among big powers, especially between China--the largest emerging power, and the United States--the largest established power. Since the turn of the millennium, China has actively called on newly emerging powers to stick to “peaceful development road” thanks to globalization and the themes of peace, development and cooperation of the era, and work together with the established powers to build a new-type, mutually-beneficial partnership on the basis of respecting core interests and vital concerns. President Hu Jintao put forward five points at the Opening Session of the Fourth Round of The China-US Strategic and Economic Dialogues, “To build such a new-type relationship between China and the United States as two major countries, we need to think creatively, to trust each other, to act in a spirit of equality and mutual understanding, we need to work actively, and to nourish our friendship”, which reflects China’s newest thinking on the new-type Sino-U.S. relationship and is responded positively by U.S. ① Test two is how to get rid of the parochial ideological diplomacy, especially the severe restraint of the cold-war thinking imposing on the big-power relations. “We should be more tolerant to one another and live together in harmony; Mutual learning and tolerance among different civilizations are an inexhaustible source of strength for social progress; We should advocate a spirit of openness and tolerance and allow different civilizations and models of development draw on each other's strength through competition and comparison and achieve common development by seeking common ground while reserving differences”, pointed out by President Hu Jintao in his statement at the General Debate of the 64th Session of the UN General Assembly, ② reflecting a new value system explored and created by China and its new diplomatic concept to maintain peace, prosperity and justice of the world. Test three is how to prevent global governance in the new period from collective actions with leadership absence, a predicament to big powers. For instance, on the world economic governance, Chinese government actively calls for sharing responsibility and leadership of big powers, and emphasizes to “adopt an attitude responsible to

① Promote Win-Win Cooperation and Build a new-type Relations Between Major Countries, Address by President Hu Jintao at the Opening Session of the Fourth Round of The China-US Strategic and Economic Dialogues, Beijing, 3 May 2012. ② President Hu Jintao’s statement at the General Debate of the 64th Session of the UN General Assembly.

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history and the future, bear in mind the common interests of mankind, build on what we have already achieved and continue to work in concert for strong, sustainable and balanced growth of the world economy”. ① Moreover, on international security governance, China calls for seeking security through development, equality, mutual trust, cooperation and innovation to cope with the growingly severe traditional and non-traditional security challenges.② These are the concepts of China’s new-type diplomacy featuring “unity, cooperation, mutual support and joint effort to address problems”.

2. China’s relations with developing countries are redefined as seeking common

development with the developing countries with the new thinking of “sharing responsibilities, expanding common interests and seeking win-win outcomes”. It has been China’s established diplomatic strategy since the onset of the new century to consolidate the diplomatic status of developing countries as the basic status in China’s overall diplomacy. In this regard, China has to be clear about its own status and stage of development. China must correctly define its own status of a developing country before it can correctly define the historical stage of its relations with developing countries. At the same time, China must make sure that what the international community sees is a real China, and that they reasonably view China’s achievement, difficulties and challenges, as well as its international contributions and capacity, before China can cultivate a propitious environment of social mentality and opinions home and abroad for China to build a mutually-beneficial, cooperative relations with developing countries.

Since the onset of new century, as China has made great progress in its

cooperation with developing countries, the international opinions, especially those of the West, began to doubt China as a developing country. On the one hand, the Western developed countries deliberately exaggerate development gaps and different interests between China and the developing countries on the ground of economic globalization, and they allege that China is not a developing country and that “China’s dominance over the world is irreversible” on the ground of China’s “economic achievement”, “high-new-technology”, “foreign aid”, “international

① Build on Achievements and Promote Development, Remarks by President Hu Jintao at the Fifth G20 Summit, Seoul, 12 November 2010. ② Vice President Xi Jinping addresses the Opening Ceremony of the World Peace Forum in Beijing, July 7, 2012

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influence”, etc.① The above allegations, whatever their purpose, have compromised and even weakened China’s status as a developing country and have impacted China’s long-earned, equal, friendly, and mutually-assistant sentiments with developing countries. On the other hand, the Western countries purposefully highlighted the deficiency and flaw in the internal governance of the developing countries as the fundamental reason of their development backward, while the Western countries omitted the fact that the Western-led international system has structurally and systematically restrained the systematic development of the developing countries.②

Thus, in the effort to consolidate China’s relations with developing countries it is

important that the above Western bias should be reversed through competition for greater international voice. On the one hand, Chinese government and leaders take on various bilateral and multilateral occasions to brief the world of China’s status quo and the direction of its development, stating that “China’s development is a long and arduous task.The scale and complexity of the challenges that we face in the course of development are unmatched anywhere else in the world and have been rarely seen in human history”;③ “China is still in the primary stage of socialism and remains a developing country”, and it is hoped that a real China be known to the world.④

China’s unswerving policy to persist as a developing country is not only in

consistent to China’s basic national condition, attributes and ability, but also helpful for defining the basic scope of the China’s national interests, and for the world to identify China’s position in the structure of the international balance of power, which enables China to assume international responsibility and obligation on a reasonable principle.

On the other hand, as for the Western accusation on the ill-governance of

① Jin Ling and Su Xiaohui, “China’s Status as a Developing Country in Western Perspective,” International Studies, no.3, 2010, p. 17-19; Martin Jacques, When China Rules the World, Penguin Books: London, 2012; and Arvind Subramanian, “The Inevitable Superpower, Why China’s Dominance Is a Sure Thing,” Foreign Affairs, Sep/Oct2011, Vol. 90 Issue 5, p66-78. ② World Bank, Sub-Saharan Africa:from Crisis to Sustainable Growth, Nov. 1989, and World Bank, Governance and Development, 1992. ③ Cooperation and Openness for Mutual Benefit and Win-Win Progress, Remarks by President Hu Jintao at the BRIC Summit, Brasilia, 16 April, 2010. ④ “Getting to Know the Real China”, Statement by Premier Wen Jiabao at the General Debate of the 65th Session of the UN General Assembly, September 23, 2010.

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developing countries, China stresses that the broad developing countries are in a disadvantageous position in the current international system and reiterates that “the international community should share more responsibility and carefully listen to the appeal of the developing countries and the most underdeveloped countries”, “without wide development and equal participation, there will be no talk of common prosperity of the world, nor talk of building fair and just international economic new order”, and “only the shared interest, responsibility and mutual benefit can bring common interest to the international community”.① China have understood that the broad developing countries are the major force to push for the international system to transform in fair and just direction, the major force of the democratization of international relations, and the major force on which China relies in its constructive participation in the transformation of international multilateral mechanism and international system. Since the onset of new century, Chinese government and leaders has constantly emphasized that China is a long-term member of the developing countries, and it is a core value of the China’s diplomacy to seek political, development and security interest in favor of the broad developing countries, and pointed out that China “will intensify cooperation with fellow developing countries, and support that they have a greater say in international affairs. We will remain forever a good partner and brother of developing countries.”②

II. Enhancing Capabilities of the New-type Diplomacy

On July 20, 2009, President Hu Jingtao raised the newest requirement on building China’s diplomatic capacities in his speech at the 11th Conference of Chinese Diplomatic Envoys Stationed Abroad, pointing out emphatically that China has to continue to improve its work of diplomatic capabilities and quality so that China will become politically more influential, economically more competitive, more endearing in its national image, and morally more attractive.③ The first decade of the new century saw enrichment and refinement of China’s diplomatic planning, especially the implementation of China’s periphery strategy and developing-country strategy, which further consolidated the foundation and mechanization of China’s ① Chinese top legislator Wu Bangguo delivered a speech at the opening ceremony of the Third World Conference of Speakers of Parliament on July 2010. ② Getting to Know the Real China, Statement by Premier Wen Jiabao at the General Debate of the 65th Session of the UN General Assembly, New York, 23 September 2010. ③ President Hu Jingtao remarks at the 11th Conference of Chinese Diplomatic Envoys Stationed Abroad, July 20, 2009: http://politics.people.com.cn/GB/1024/9687354.html.

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relations with periphery and developing countries, an important evidence of the transition and upgrading of the diplomatic capabilities.

1. China will more proactively upgrade two aspects of building the new periphery

order. The first aspect is to upgrade economic cooperation in order to upgrade the mechanization of China-periphery relations. As China has the most neighboring countries, which differentiate largely in national conditions and share the most complicated mutual relations, China has put the periphery strategy as the first of the four strategic priorities since the early new century, observed the principle of being a good neighbor and a good partner of neighboring countries, and constructed a regional economic cooperation framework with the leading engine of China, which in turn supported, consolidated and safeguarded the periphery strategy.

This can be outlined in the following two points: On the one hand, China has

constructed a network of bilateral partnerships with almost all neighboring countries, and the number of strategic partnerships is increasing. ① China maintained its position as the biggest export market of Asian countries and remained the largest trade partner of the DPRK, Mongolia, Japan, the ROK, Vietnam, Malaysia and India respectively. China's investment in Asian countries has grown rapidly. As of November 2011, China's non-financial direct investment in Asian countries totaled US$18.03 billion. China is the No.1 source of foreign investment in Myanmar, Cambodia, the DPRK and Mongolia. It will also build a Free Trade Area (FTA) in each of the ASEAN member countries and lift up economic and trade cooperation through cluster investment. China cooperated closely with Asian countries in the sectors of finance, new and high-tech, new energy, environmental protection energy saving and developmental aids. In 2011, China signed the bilateral currency swap agreement with Thailand, Pakistan and Mongolia worth RMB70, 10, and 5 billion respectively and expanded the currency swap with the ROK to RMB360 billion. The total amount of bilateral currency swap agreements China signed with Asian countries reached RMB775 billion. The Industrial and Commercial Bank of China and China UnionPay set up branches in Laos, Singapore, Pakistan and India for business expansion.② The partnership with periphery region has especially increased the mutual economic and trade

① Le Yucheng, “60 Years of the New China’s Diplomacy: Achievement and Experience”, 60 Years of New China’s Diplomacy, ed. by Zhao Jinjun, Beijing University Press, 2010, p.5-6. ② Standing Together to Cope with Challenges, Assistant Foreign Minister Liu Zhenmin Talks about Asian Situation and China's Diplomatic Work with Neighboring Countries.

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cooperation tie that played a role of ballast to the overall China-periphery relations.

On the other hand, the overall leading role of the sub-regional economic cooperation mechanism is enhanced. China has tried hard to push for ASEAN+1 and ASEAN+3-led economic cooperation, and taken first to kick off China-ASEAN free trade area, which encouraged Japan, ROK, Australia, New Zeeland, India and ASEAN to have signed free trade area agreement. ASEAN+3 mechanism has made great achievement in financial cooperation: they have implemented the Chiang Mai Initiative Multilateralization (CMIM) and built up a regional foreign reserve bank worth of $120 billion and Regional Credit Guarantee and Investment Facility, which have made great contribution to the East Asian economic and financial stability.① China has worked vigorously to advance connectivity construction with periphery countries, and China is ready to establish all-dimensional, in-depth and strategic connectivity with ASEAN, which will further enhance China’s key position in the regional economic cooperation.②

The second aspect is to proactively pursue a regional political, security

cooperation strategy on both “eastern and western lines”. On the western line, China regards SCO as a center to construct a stable periphery strategy and China is exploring a new-type regional cooperation road based on the new security concept of “mutual trust, mutual benefit, equality, and cooperation”, on the implementation of building border military mutual trust, and on “partnership but not alliance” in a sense of comprehensive security, common security and cooperative security. In recent years, China has deepened Sino-Russian strategic partnership and steadily advanced intra-SCO economic and cultural exchanges aimed at rendering SCO into a harmonious and amicable home, a source of strong support for regional security and stability, a driver of regional economic development, and an effective platform for international exchanges with greater international influence.③

① Liu Zhenmin, “East Asian Cooperation: Opportunity and Challenge”, see: http://www.fmprc.gov.cn/chn/gxh/tyb/ywcf/t982229.htm；The Fifth Trilateral Summit Meeting among the People's Republic of China, the Republic of Korea and Japan, Joint Declaration on the Enhancement of Trilateral Comprehensive Cooperative Partnership, 13 May 2012. ② Work Together Towards Deeper Cooperation and Sustained Development, Address by Vice President Xi Jinping at the Opening Ceremony of the 9th China-ASEAN Business and Investment Summit and 2012 Forum on China-ASEAN Free Trade Area, Nanning, 21 September 2012. ③ Upholding Lasting Peace, Promoting Common Prosperity, Remarks by President Hu Jintao at the 12th Meeting of the Council of Heads of Member States of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization, Beijing, 7 June 2012.

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On the eastern line, as regional political, security order is caught up with aggravating clashes between new and old configurations, China is building up diplomatic capabilities of managing regional hot-spots, shaping regional order and providing more public goods for regions. Since the onset of the new century, China-Asia-Pacific relations is emerged with two great issues. On the one hand, as Asia-Pacific region soared in its economic and strategic status, small and middle countries and groups within the region seek autonomy which overlapped with strategic re-pivoting to Asia-Pacific on the part of powers within and without the region, especially the United States. On the other hand, as China’s comprehensive rise has produced an on-going “systematic shock” on the periphery countries, the lack of inclusive, effective, comprehensive security architect in the region is looming large, which has worsened the binary configuration of the so-called “economic dependence on China, and security dependence on U.S.” emerged from the region. In addition, the growing complex security challenge has furthered the dual effect of the competition-cooperation in the region. Chinese government is embarking on building the following five capabilities in dealing with the growing development in the periphery situation. First, China will stick to the peaceful development path; try hard to dissolve the structural shock of the comprehensive rise of China given the discourse of “power shift”; and to persist in “striving for a peaceful international environment to develop ourselves, and promote world peace through our own development”; and “stay concentrated and guard against complacence and impetuosity” in respect of the strategic direction of peaceful development.① Second, China will do its best to enhance the economic cooperation level of mutual benefit, win-win, common development, and step up the role of strategic economic cooperation as “stability valve” and “ballast” to the overall relations, and cultivate the awareness that Asia-Pacific region become a highly interdependent community of interests and destiny.② Third, Sino-U.S. relations is used as a leverage to promote “Sino-U.S.+X” trilateral diplomacies. China has introduced the Sino-U.S. Asia-Pacific security consultation into China’s Asia-Pacific strategic planning for the sake of promoting China’s cooperation with other countries and groups via Sino-U.S. cooperation and actively advance trilateral ① Qiu Yuanping, “Successful Exploration of China’s Peaceful Development Road”, Seek Truth magazine, no.20, 2012. ② Liu Zhenmin, “East Asian Cooperation: Opportunity and Challenge”, see: http://www.fmprc.gov.cn/chn/gxh/tyb/ywcf/t982229.htm; The Fifth Trilateral Summit Meeting among the People's Republic of China, the Republic of Korea and Japan, Joint Declaration on the Enhancement of Trilateral Comprehensive Cooperative Partnership, 13 May 2012.

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diplomacy led by “Sino-U.S.+X” relations, which can lead to benign interactions among China, U.S. and neighboring countries.① Fourth, China pushed for evolution and transition of the regional cooperation mechanisms by promoting ASEAN-led, inclusive, multilateral security cooperation dialogues, and encouraging ASEAN to exercise “unite and self-dependence” and play a central” role, which can prevent ASEAN not only from becoming an outpost of U.S. containment of China, and but also from forming a “united front against China” in respect of China’s core interests of territorial sovereignty. Fifth, stability and territorial sovereignty are equally important regarding the sea territorial disputes in East China Sea and South China Sea, a policy not only fully demonstrates China’s resolution and confidence in adhering to principle and protecting sovereignty, but also helps to reach agreement with ASEAN on implementing the follow-up Actions Guideline of Declaration on the Conduct of Parties in the South China Sea, and setting up 3 billion fund to promote China-ASEAN maritime cooperation, maintaining general stability of the South China Sea situation. On the issue of East China Sea, especially when Japan had brazenly ignited Diaoyu Island dispute that broke the consensus reached by China and Japan on the issue, China is steadfast in defending its sovereignty, which earned China a strategic upper hand. In sum, China endeavors to build up an Asia-Pacific cooperation framework, which is based on common interests, centered on ASEAN, bolstered by big-power coordination, and pragmatically cooperative.

2. China pursues the new-type mutually beneficial strategy to enhance and

develop its capabilities to cooperate with the developing world. Since the onset of new century, the measures China has taken to enhance the capabilities can be described as follows: a. the mechanized mutually beneficial cooperation. China has successively issued policy documents on Africa and Latin America, which mapped out policy directions and priority areas. China has also established BRICS summit mechanism, continuously deepened China’s relations with various regional organizations of Africa, Latin America and Arab countries by successively setting up China-Africa Cooperation Forum, China-Arab Cooperation Forum and China-Pacific Island Countries Economic Development & Cooperation Forum, etc. In recent years, developing countries have undergone a severe development crisis thanks to economic globalization and international financial crisis. Chinese government has taken many occasions to urge international society to strengthen ① Yuan Peng, “Strategic Thinking on Building New-type Big-Power Relations of China and U.S.”, Contemporary International Relations, no.5, 2012, p.8.

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cooperation, viewed the developmental issue with a more macro perspective, and actively explored new ways and new areas for South-South cooperation and South-North cooperation, in order to push for extending China’s bilateral cooperation with developing countries to multilateral one.①

b. China takes a strategic approach to the developmental aid. China has further

combined the two development strategies--developmental aid and developing two markets (markets home and abroad) and using two resources(resources home and abroad) in the first decade of the new century to have basically fulfilled the strategic goal of mutual benefit and common development set up between China and African Countries. On the conference of China government’s work of developmental aid held in August 2010, China reemphasized the priority tasks of improving and strengthening foreign aid in the new situation, including optimizing structure of aid, enhancing quality of projects, enriching content of aid, so as to combine the increase of economic aid to developing countries and strengthening of independent development capability with the deepening of China’s pragmatic, complementary, mutually beneficial cooperation with developing countries.②

c. Reforms of international system are approached in a way of forming blocs.

China has worked together with developing countries to push for reform and reconstruction of international order. Relying on the collective efforts of the broad developing countries, China has elevated the status of developing countries including China in the international economic governance mechanisms of G20, IMF, world Bank, and through its coordination and cooperation with developing countries, China has defended the basic right and developmental right of developing countries in areas of climate change, developmental cooperation, human rights protection, energy security and food security.

III. Broadening the Vision of New-type Diplomacy

China’s diplomacy in the new period is increasingly transcending regional and local visions and instead taking on a global perspective in shaping its own diplomacy agenda, assuming international responsibility due to a big power in order to build a

① Conquer Poverty and Share the Achievements of Human Progress, Remarks by Premier Wen Jiabao, at the High-Level Side Event on the LDCs and Rio+20, 21 June 2012. ② Guide reading on Central Committee on formulating the country's 12th Five-Year Program (2011-2015) on National Economic and Social Development.

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fairer and more reasonable international order and endeavoring to build a new, multilateral and issue-oriented diplomacy centering on “co-governance” and coupling with capability and responsibility.

1. China’s identity in the international system is confirmed that takes into account both Chinese interest and international expectation. a. China has shifted its international identity from “an outsider” or “a revolutionary” to “a participant”and “a constructor”. “China is a responsible country and Chinese people will remain trustworthy friends and reliable partners of the people of the world. China is a participant, defender and constructor of the international system”, pointed out by Premier Wen Jiabao.① China’s formal accession to WTO in 2001 marks China’s comprehensive participation into the current international system. China has made substantial and constructive contribution to the international system reform in the wake of 2008 financial crisis. China not only advocates the spirit of “pulling together in times of trouble to overcome difficulties”, puts forward principles and proposals including “comprehensive, balanced, incremental and effective development”, and steps up assistance to the developing countries, but also expedites its own transformation of development model in order to promote the global economic recovery.② b. China has generally completed the participation in the international system in all-directions, in broad areas and on deep levels. China has joined 130-some global and regional, governmental organizations, signed about 200,000 bilateral treaties and over 300 multilateral treaties covering areas of politics, economics, security, science, education, culture, health, etc. China’s access to the international system in a way that shifting from features of passivity, negative, and resistent in the period before the onset of reform and opening-up to features of active, preemptive, and integrated thereafter, and from bilateralism to multilateralism over the two periods, a tremendous change indeed.③ c. China has tried to shape the sense and identity in common with those of the international community in its participation into the international system. The gaps of perspectives between China and international actors are narrowed. China’s awareness of international society has entrenched. For China, the international community is increasingly interdependent and mutually beneficial in the global era. ① Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao addresses the second meeting of the China-European Union Forum in Hamburg, Germany, Sept. 13, 2006. ② Build on Achievements and Promote Development, Remarks by President Hu Jintao at the Fifth G20 Summit, 12 November 2010. ③ Pan Zhongqi, “China’s Participation, Profit and Influence in the World Order”, World Economics and Politics, no.3, 2007, p.52.

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China has done well in living up to the international treaties, and China’s socialization level is deepened. China has a strong political will in strengthening international cooperation and its foreign policy is highly cooperative.①

2. Constructive contribution has increasingly become the major content of

China’s interaction with the outside world. a. As one of the core states that is shaping the forthcoming international system, China has revised the connotation of the international order. China is trying hard to call for building a peaceful, gradualist, multilateral, mutually beneficial, diversified, cooperative and co-prosperous, new international order, and proposed systematic initiatives of building a harmonious world aiming at stepping up the ideas of transforming the international system and global governance. Those initiatives include the notions that “China sticks to the concept of building a fair and just international order, the concept of mutually beneficial international development, the new security concept of mutual trust, mutual benefit, equal and coordination, the concept of international responsibility that allows proactivity and achievement, the concept of good-neighborly regional cooperation, and the concept of comprehensive national interest, and China pursues an actively defensive national defense policy and keeps prudent and cautious in handling international affairs.② In this process, China shall enrich the connotation of the multilateral diplomatic theory, widen the strategic planning of multilateral diplomacy and build up policy instruments of China’s multilateral diplomacy.

b. China comes up with new thinkings of China’s diplomacy in the new period.

They regard the idea of a harmonious world as the core concept of China’s multilateral diplomacy; regard the new developmental concept--the scientific development in the constructions of politics, economics, culture, society and ecology--as the path to realize the peaceful development road with Chinese characteristics; regard building up China’s cultural, soft power--China’s developmental model, life style, cultural values and its endearing, appealing, influence and competitiveness to the world--as the necessary guarantee of shaping China’s relations with the world; regard launching public diplomacy and humanity diplomacy as major platform of promoting China’s new thinking and influencing international opinions; and regard joining and innovating international cooperation ① Zhu Liqun, et al., China and International System: Process and Practice, p.315-343. ② Qiu Yuanping, “Successful Exploration of China’s Peaceful Development Road”, Seek Truth magazine, no.20, 2012.

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mechanisms as the institutional bolster to realize China’s new thinkings. All in all, with the advent of the new century, China’s new diplomatic thinking around the peaceful development with Chinese characteristics broke through the established theories of international relations and conventional mindset regarding the rise of great powers, and made an important contribution to the development of the 21st century international relations and global governance.①

c. China has pushed for the reforming and shaping of the regional and

issue-oriented multilateral mechanisms, combined the long-term goals with short-term breakthroughs, seized the exceptional opportunities emerging from the international financial crisis, and regarded it as the priority realms for enhancing China’s participation in setting the international rules to enhance the capability of the international financial institutions in their response to the financial internationalization, and enhance discourse power and power of participation of the developing countries. At the same time, China has pushed for institutional cooperation with developing powers to create strategic environment and institutional guarantee for China’s peaceful development and deepened financial and economic cooperation in the Asia-Pacific region to enhance China’s capability and influence in participating in reforms of international financial and economic systems.

d. China has developed the economic diplomacy. By the strategic transition of

economic diplomacy, China has integrated political and economic cooperation, synchronized cooperations both on the levels of states and regions, and developed a relatively complete system of both looking abroad for investment and attracting overseas investment in favor of China’s development strategy.

① Qiu Yuanping, “Successful Exploration of China’s Peaceful Development Road”, Seek Truth, no.20, 2012.

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On the Motivation of China’s Mediation Diplomacy in the Middle East

SUN Degang∗

Regional international integrations boomed since the end of WWII. Regional cooperation become tides of the times be it NAFTA after the American-styled imperial management model, EU after the European-styled united-state management model,① or the MERCOSUR, APEC, ASEAN and SCO that took the form of informal mechanisms. By contrast, the Middle East region is the only exception given the reason of historical, cultural, religious, ethnic and sectarian conflicts. Whether the Middle East is a geographic concept, a political concept, or a cultural concept remains a dispute in academics. This essay largely regards it as a geographic concept including Western Asians, North Africans and Eastern Africans. In contrast to other regions, the Middle Eastern international relations is more uncertain and volatile, and with outstanding, traditional and non-traditional issues like territorial disputes, ethnic feuds, religious contradictions, terrorism and WMD proliferation, etc. Since the end of WWII, sovereign states and international organizations like U.S., EU, Russia (USSR), China, League of Arab States, African Union, and UN have engaged in the settlement of the Middle East hot-spot issues, and expanded their political influence through political mediation and participation in the regional governance of the Middle East. For example, Kissinger's shuttle diplomacy in the Middle East in the wake of the fourth Middle East war in 1973 ended up with U.S. gaining the upper hand in the U.S.-Soviet games.② Thus, mediation diplomacy is an important means for international actors to lift their hard- as well as soft-power.

I. Raise of the Issue With China’s international status growing continuously and its overseas interests

∗ Dr. SUN Degang is Associate Professor at Institute for Middle East Studies of Shanghai International Studies University. ① Su Changhe, “Empire, Supra-state, and Future East Asia”, Guoji Guancha (International Watch), no.2, 2003, p.1. ② William Burr, ed., The October War and U.S. Policy, The National Security Archive, October 7, 2003; Jeffrey Z. Rubin, Dynamics of Third Party Intervention: Kissinger in the Middle East, New York: Praeger, 1981; pp. 197-225.

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expanding, the Middle East region is increasingly becoming China’s “big periphery”, and participation in addressing the Middle East hot-spot issues is an important means for China to protect national interest and assume international responsibility. The Middle East is even more important to China in strategic terms--it is a fulcrum on which China cooperates and competes with other big powers, directly relevant to China’s post-cold war strategic opportunity period.① This essay argues that China in fact has obtained two strategic opportunity periods between the end of cold war in 1991 and the dramatic change in the Middle East in 2011. The two periods, about a decade long for each, were invariably started and ended with important clashes between the West and Islamic countries in the Middle East. China’s rapid, economic and social development in the last two decades in the end of cold war was precisely accredited to the grab of the two strategic opportunity periods.②

Since 2011, multi-polarization has further developed as the West declined, the

newly emerging powers rose and regional middle and small countries united for self-entrenchment. Following the dramatic change in the Middle East, the long-pressed, anti-Israeli and anti-U.S. forces would play an important role in domestic politics of the Middle Eastern Islamic countries. The Iran’s nuclear issue and the dramatic change in the Middle East will prevent the United States again from re-pivoting to Asia-Pacific handily, which bestows China a third strategic opportunity period. China has to actively intervene into the Middle East affairs through political mediation as one of the important instruments before China can participate in addressing hot-spot issues in the Middle East, enhance China’s political voice in the region and veer the hot-spot issues to the direction in favor of the national interest of China. There are two outstanding issues yet to be discussed academically about China’s mediation actions in the Middle East in the new period, which began with the event that China sent its first special envoy to the Middle East.

1. What is the motivation of the intervention? Is it driven by interest or by

international responsibility? Is the intervention relevant to the expectation and

① Xu Jian, International Environment and China’s Strategic Opportunity, People’s Publication House, 2004. ② Sun Degang, “China’s Quasi-alliance Diplomacy in the New Period”, World Economics and Politics, no.3, p.74. The first opportunity period is emerged from the Gulf war in 1991 and the second is from global counter-terrorism and wars in Afghanistan and Iraq.

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concerns of the international community to some extent? To what extent is China’s mediation impacted by China’s limitation to understand the difficulty of addressing the Middle East issues?

2、Why China intervenes in various hot-spot issues in the Middle East to various

extents ? As is known to all, the Middle East issues can break down into two categories: the traditional issues such as Palestine-Israel issue, Western-Sahara issue, Cyprus issue, Iran nuclear issue, and the non-traditional issues like Somali pirates, Bahrain internal conflict; or into three categories of internal issues such as political contradiction in Yemen, regional issues like contradictions among the Middle East countries, such as Palestine-Israel issue and Western-Sahara issue, and trans-regional issues like contradictions between the Middle East and extra-Middle East countries, such as U.S.-Iran contradiction around the Iran’s nuclear issue. As those issues are different in their positions in China’s diplomacy, and in which China puts in diplomatic resources to different extents and China intervened with different approaches and goals. Why? These are the two questions yet to be discussed exclusively.

II. Literature Review

Mediations are ubiquitous in social, business, ethnic, political and interstate relations, concerning psychology, sociology, economics, management, law, diplomacy, ethnology and political science, a trans-disciplinary subject. ① Mediation refers to invention into conflict by a third party with non-coercive and neutral ways and with peaceful management and behavior to address the conflict, whose direct outcome is to transform the bilateral relations into trilateral relations.② Since the 20th century, mediation as an obligation in settling disputes were carried in multilateral and bilateral treaties, such as Hague Convention for the Peaceful Settlement of Peaceful Settlement of International Disputes in 1907, and American Treaty of Peaceful Settlement of International Disputes in 1948. ③ Although, mediation is an archaic diplomatic act, international researches on the subject are few, which can break down into the following four categories. ① Carrie Menkel-Meadow, Lela Porter Love, and Andrea Kupfer Schneider, Mediation: Practice, Policy, and Ethics, New York: ASPEN, 2006. ② Jacob Bercovitch, ed., Studies in International Mediation, New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2002, p. 5. ③ Ye Xingping, “On International Mediation”, Wuhan University Journal (philosophy and sociology), 1997, no.2, p.18.

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Category one examines the concept and theory of mediation. The research results of this category mainly include works and essays of Western scholars discussing definitions, categories, motivations, mechanisms and performance and using qualitative and quantitative methods that enshrine Western theories and practices of mediation.①

Category two mainly examines mediation cases of national and international

organizations including the United States, Israel, Qatar, the United Nations, that usually using historical approaches and case studies.②

Category three examines mediation in respect of diplomacy and negotiation,

believing that mediation is an instrument of crisis management and conflict prevention with the intervention of a third party.③

① Jacob Bercovitch, ed., Studies in International Mediation, New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2002; Jacob Bercovitch and Scott Sigmund Gartner, eds., International Conflict Mediation: New approaches and findings, London and New York: Routledge, 2009; Jacob Bercovitch, etc., The SAGE Handbook of Conflict Resolution, Los Angeles: SAGE, 2009; Eileen Carroll and Karl Machie, International Mediation—The Art of Business Diplomacy, The Hague, London and Boston: Kluwer Law International, 2000; Folberg Golam, Lawyer Negotiation: Theory, Practice, and Law, New York: Aspen Publishers, 2006; Carrie Menkel-Meadow, Lela Porter Love, and Andrea Kupfer Schneider, Mediation: Practice, Policy, and Ethics, New York: ASPEN, 2006; Carrie Menkel-Meadow, ed., Mediation: Theory, Policy and Practice, Aldershot: Ashgate, 2001; Marieke Kleiboer, The Multiple Realities of International Mediation, Boulder and London: Lynne Rienner Publishers, 1998; Burcu Savun, “Information, Bias, and Mediation Success,” International Studies Quarterly, Vol, 52, No. 1, 2008; Saadia Touval and William Zartman, eds., International Mediation in Theory and Practice, Boulder: Westview Press, 1985; Dennis J. Sandole, etc., Handbook of Conflict Analysis and Resolution, London and New York: Routledge, 2009; Ye Xingping, “On International Mediation”, Wuhan University Journal (philosophy and sociology), 1997, no.2; Qi Haixia, “On Performance of Internatoinal Mediations”, International Political Science, 2005, no.4. ② effrey Z. Rubin, Dynamics of Third Party Intervention: Kissinger in the Middle East, New York: Praeger, 1981; Dale Bagshaw and Elisabeth Porter, eds., Mediation in the Asia-Pacific Region: Transforming Conflicts and Building Peace, London and New York: Routledge, 2009; K. Venkata Raman, ed., Dispute Settlement Through the United Nations, New York: Oceana Publications, 1977; Kenneth W. Stein, Heroic Diplomacy: Sadat, Kissinger, Carter, Begin and the Quest for Arab-Israeli Peace, London: Routledge, 1999; Mordechai Gazit, Israeli Diplomacy and the Quest for Peace, London: Frank Cass, 2002; Sun Degang, “The Fourth the Middle East War in 1973 and the U.S. Mediaiton Diplomacy”, American Studies, 2010, no.1; Liu Baotang et al., “On Envoy Mediation of Chu State”, Journal of China foreign affairs university, 1996, no.1; Ding Long and Zhao Yuanhao, “Qatar Foreign Policy and Practice”, Arab World Studies, 2010, no.1. ③ Howard Raiffa, The Art and Science of Negotiation, Cambridge, Massachusetts and London: Harvard University Press, 1982; Michael Greig and Patrick M. Regan, “When Do They Say Yes? An Analysis of Willingness to Offer and Accept Mediation in Civil Wars,” International Studies Quarterly, Vol. 52, No. 4, 2008; Francois Debrix, Rituals Of Mediation: International Politics

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Category fourth mainly examines China’s Middle East diplomacy in the new period, e.g., the special envoy mechanism explored by Liu Zhongmin of Shanghai International Studies University and the 6-party talks of Korean nuclear issue, discussed by Zhu Feng of the Institute of International Relations, Beijing University.①

In general, academic research on mediation today are evolved in three tiers. The

first is the tier of mediation diplomatics including basic theories of crisis management, conflict settlement and preventive defense; the second is the tier of big-power and regional countries’ mediation on the Middle East issues including comparative studies on mediations conducted by UN, Arab League, African Union, the Gulf Cooperation Council, U.S., Russia, EU, Japan, Qatar, Egypt, Algeria, Saudi Arabia, Turkey, etc. The third is the tier of China’s the Middle East diplomacy in terms of instrument, target, mechanism, resources (including bilateral and multilateral mediations). Those research outcomes feature pluralism of subjects, creativeness of approaches and novelty of dimensions, though with obvious weaknesses.

1. In theoretical terms, they were more concerned with the performance of

mediation by focusing on whether multilateralism is more efficient than unilateralism and whether symmetry powers work better than asymmetry powers in the third-party mediation, while they overlooked the analysis on the motivation of the neutral, third party.

2. They elaborate on the mediations conducted by Western countries, Qatar,

Algeria, UN, Arab League, African Union and international organizations at the expense of Chinese mediations, especially those conducted in the Middle East in recent years. This essay therefore tries to make up for the weaknesses by examining

And Social Meaning, New York: University of Minnesota Press, 2003; Oran R. Young, The Intermediaries: Third Parties in International Crises, Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1967; Howard Raiffa, Negotiation Analysis: The Science and Art of Collaborative Decision Making, Cambridge, Mass.: The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 2002. ① Liu Changmin, International Mediaiton in Korean Nuke Settlement, China University of Politics and Law Press, 2007; Liu Zhongmin, “Hot-spot Research in China: Feature, Concept and Implication”, Northeast Asia Forum, 2009, no.3, p.5; Sun Fang and Zhuo Bohong, “Mediiation in the Geomundo Island Event in Late Qing Dynasty”, Huaiying Industrail College Journal, 2006, no.2; Jiang Zhaijiu, “Chinese Participation in the 6-party Talks: the Role and Future of Mediation, Contemporary Asia-Pacific, 2007, no.2 Zhu Feng, “China’s Diplomatic Mediation and the 6-party Talks on Korean Nuke Issue”, Foreign Policy Review, 2006, no.2.

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the motivation and model of China’s the Middle East diplomatic mediation.

III. Core Concept: “Mediation Diplomacy” in Terms of Diplomacy Categorization

The term “mediation diplomacy” in this essay refers to “behavior of a neutral, third party assumed by sovereign state or international organization that offers to intervene in conflict via non-coercive means and managing crisis and settling conflict by peaceful means”. The mediation diplomacy as a special diplomacy category should be available with the following elements: a. the player should be a diplomatic actor, i.e., sovereignty state, international organization and its representative, but not the civil mediators addressing family, enterprise and social disputes. b. the mediator should be willing to settle crisis and contradiction. c. the mediator offers to intervene in conflict and, by building trust with conflicting parties, comes up with trade-off alternative rather than coercive means. d. the mediator tries to use peaceful means rather than violent means to manage and solve conflict, though short of humanitarian intervention. As shown in Fig.1, mediation diplomacy turns adversary, two-party zero-sum game into three-party win-win cooperation in conflict management, i.e., turning bilateralism into trilateralism, turning conflict into cooperation, turning security competition into political compromise and turning international politics into state-interstate political interaction.

Indirect interaction between conflicting parties

Trust in Trust in

Domestic politics Domestic politics

of country of country

A B

Indirect interaction between conflicting parties

Figure 1, Mediation Diplomacy Illustration

Representative

of country A

Representative

of country B

Mediation of the

third party

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Mediation diplomacy is different from diplomatic mediation in that the former is a kind of diplomacy while the latter is a peace-making behavior, a diplomatic activity. Cases of mediation diplomacy abound in international relations. Statistically, between 1945 and 1874, there were 310 cases of large-scale international conflicts erupted in the world, of which 82% were followed up with mediation suggestions raised by third parties. Kal Holsti’s research shows that the third-party mediation offers accounted for 45% of the 94 cases of post-war, interstate conflicts. ① In whatever percentage of 82% or 45%, mediation diplomacies are common. Common though, they extremely vary in performance. For examples, in the wake of the China-India border conflict, Ceylon (Sri Lanka) and other five Asian and African countries forwarded mediation option but failed at last; upon the eruption of the fourth Middle East war in 1973 when Israel encircled Egyptian’s third army, Kissinger took on the mediation diplomacy to have unprecedentedly brought the two countries to the table and ended up with peace of the two countries.②

On the one hand, mediation diplomacy must be supported by powerful actors. On

the other, smaller powers would take advantage of their special relations with the conflicting parties to reach multiplied result. For example, when the United States and Iran were imminent in shooting each other following Iran’s Islamic revolution in 1979, Algeria stepped in to have weathered the storm, which positively improved the image of Algeria.③

Mediation diplomacy in China has a long history dated back to ancient times.

Especially in the Spring and Autumn Period, strategists and thinkers frequently mediated among vassal states. Mediation diplomacy of the Chinese government in modern times is as much active. For example, in April 15, 1885, the British Asia-fleet abruptly occupied Geomundo island of Korea, controlling the channel through which the Russian’s Far-east fleet getting into Yellow Sea from Sea of Japan. As a suzerain state, Qing-dynasty government played off the contradiction of

① Jacob Bercovitch, “Mediation in International Conflict,” In William I. Zartman, I. and J. Lewis Rasmussen eds., Peacemaking in International Conflict: Methods and Techniques, Washington: U.S. Institute of Peace Press, 1997, p. 131. ② Jacob Bercovitch, “Mediation in International Conflict,” In William I. Zartman, I. and J. Lewis Rasmussen eds., Peacemaking in International Conflict: Methods and Techniques, Washington: U.S. Institute of Peace Press, 1997, p. 131. ③ Saadia Touval and William Zartman, eds., International Mediation in Theory and Practice, Boulder: Westview Press, 1985, pp. 22-23.

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Britain and Russia on the ground of protecting the suzerainty of Korea, which resulted in the relaxation of the dispute and Russia’s commitment not to occupy Korean territory and British withdrawal from the island, a victory for China’s mediation diplomacy for the time-being.① Since August 2003, China has staged the six-party talk mechanism on Korean nuke issue which further exhibited China’s vibrant mediation diplomacy.② In the Middle East, China participated in peaceful solution of the Sudan issue, Iran’s nuclear issue, Palestine-Israel peace process, Libya crisis and Syria crisis, which also highlighted Chinese-styled mediation diplomacy.

IV. Theoretical Hypotheses: The Impacts

on China’s the Middle East Mediation China’s mediation diplomacy in the Middle East in the new period was necessary.

1. The Middle East region as a whole is endowed with vast natural resources though acute with territorial, ethnic and sectarian contradictions. Countries in the region are facing three challenges, namely, social transition at home, configuration transition of the region, and transition of international system. Various crises, contradictions and conflicts break out uninterruptedly. Therefore, China as a permanent member of the UN Security Council assumes a distinctive responsibility. 2. As China constantly pursues a peaceful, neutral and non-alignment policy, never forges strategic alliance with any country in the region and keeps friendship relations with all parties in the region, China can become a fair and just mediator on the conflicts.③ 3. As none of U.S., EU, Japan, Russia and India, be them traditional or emerging powers, is capable of orbiting the Middle East region into their respective “backyard” or “sphere of influence”, China’s mediation diplomacy will not only help to push for the regional governance, but also help to construct new-type big-power cooperation. 4. One year on since the Arab revolt, the Arab countries have widely pursued a balancing strategy between big powers, and welcomed the rising China to participate in the settlement of the Middle East issues, which provided Chinese mediation with a good external condition. ④ 5. China has ① Sun Fang and Zhuo Bohong, “Mediiation in the Geomundo Island Event in Late Qing Dynasty”, Huaiying Industrial College Journal, 2006, no.2. ② Liu Changmin, International Mediation in Korean Nuke Settlement, China University of Politics and Law Press, 2007, Chapter IV. ③ Sun Degang, “on China-Arab Strategic Cooperation”, Arab World Studies, 2010, no.6, p.30. ④ Bahgat Korany, and Ali E. Dessouki, The Foreign Policies of Arab States, Cairo and New York: The American University in Cairo Press, 2008, pp. 545-596.

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accumulated experience of mediation diplomacy on settling the issues of Darfur, Palestine-Israel peace process, Iran’s nuke, domestic conflicts in Libyan and Syria respectively, which laid down the foundation for forming the theory and practice of the mediation diplomacy with Chinese characteristics.

Chinese mediation diplomacy in the Middle East started with setting up the

special envoy mechanism on Palestine-Israel issue in Sept. 2002. Over a decade of development, China’s mediation diplomacy in the Middle East started from scratch, probed in practice, and opened a new path. The realms of the mediation diplomacy expanded continuously, which included Palestine-Israel issue, Sudan issue, Iran’s nuke issue, Somali issue, domestic conflicts in Libya and Syria, etc. Take the special envoy mechanism as an example, China has established a special envoy for each of Korean nuclear issue, Sudan issue, and Palestine-Israel issue, of which two were dealing with the Middle East issues, an evidence that the Middle East has become an important arena on which China stages bilateral and multilateral relations with other powers and participates in the Middle East governance. Over the last decade, China’s mediation in the Middle East has matured, showing firm stance on principles and flexibility on policy instrument and intervening deeper on some issues (e.g., Sudan issue and Iran’s nuke issue) than on other issues (e.g., Cyprus issue and Yemen issue). What are the reasons behind the differentiation? This essay identifies four motivations: relevance of interest, impact of power, international concern and intractability of the crisis settlement. All the four have determined the depth of China’s mediation.

A. Relevance of interest

Hypothesis one, the more the Middle East hot-spot issue associates with Chinese realistic interest, the more likely China involves in the mediation.

Generally speaking, that a third party comes to mediation is largely up to the

reckoning of its own interest.① In the new period, Chinese interest in the Middle East exist in four aspects: first, normal supply of energies, stable price of energies, and growing business interest; second, keeping balance of power in the region that prevents any regional and external powers from monopolizing the Middle East affairs and seeking hegemony over the region; third, preventing the region from ① Jacob Bercovitch, ed., Studies in International Mediation, New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2002, p. 7.

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appearance of anti-China government and impairing otherwise good relations with China; four, keeping peace and stability in the region and prevent the region from political turmoil.

The first of the above four interests is the realistic interest of China, which is

more immediate and tangible. When this interest is at stake, China will more likely put in diplomatic resource and launch mediation diplomacy. For example, upon the outbreak of Iran’s nuke crisis, China proactively participated in the “5+1” talks, and actively pushed for the peaceful settlement of the issue. An important reason is: Iran’s oil relates to the lifeline of China’s national economy and Iran is an important trade partner of China with huge cooperation potentiality, including cooperation projects in energy, infrastructure construction and trade. By contrast, China has little realistic interest in west Sahara, hence with limited input of diplomatic resource, though China participates in the UN peace-keeping action in west Sahara, but not mediation diplomacy yet.

B. Influence of power

Hypothesis two: the stronger China can exert its influence on hot-spot issues in the Middle East, the more likely China will engage in mediation diplomacy. Mediation diplomacy is as much related to the capability of the mediator as related to his will. The neutral, third party will more likely to conduct mediation diplomacy if he is capable, and have the resources available, to pressure and influence the conflicting parties and their behaviors.① For example, that president Carter succeeded in persuading Egypt and Israel to the David Camp negotiation with baits of economic aid and security guarantee is mainly attributed to the fact that the United States is the only power that can do so.②

Likely, China maintains constructive cooperation relations with all conflicting

parties of Sudan, a large influence over southern and northern Sudan, which will only further intensify along with arms sale, economic aid and trade cooperation. Cao Gangchuan met with his counterpart, Chief of Joint Staff of Sudanese armed forces Haj Ahmed El Gaili in April 2007 to issued a joint statement by reiterating

① Oran R. Young, The Intermediaries: Third Parties in International Crises, Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1967, pp. 80-90. ② Marieke Kleiboer, The Multiple Realities of International Mediation, Boulder and London: Lynne Rienner Publishers, 1998, pp. 89-118.

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bilateral cooperation relations in all fields. ①Upon the tensions broke out in southern and northern Sudan, Chinese president visited Sudan and sent special envoy Liu Gui to the mediation between the southern and northern Sudan. They finally separated peacefully in 2011 thanks to the active mediation of China. By contrast, Chinese influence is too limited on the southern and northern Cyprus for China to wage mediation diplomacy on the Cyprus issue.

C. International attention

Hypothesis three: the higher the international concerns is over the hot-spot issues in the Middle East, the more likely China will come to the mediation diplomacy.

China’s decision to mediate in the Middle East is not only out of realistic interest,

but also out of international responsibility. Over recent years, along with the rise of China’s comprehensive national strengths, comes higher international expectation. China is expected to assume international responsibility, to provide public goods, and to maintain international law and order. As a permanent member of Security Council and a large developing country, China is responsible for maintaining stability in the Middle East region, to strengthen crisis management in the region and to promote conflict settlement in the region. No hot-spot issues in the Middle East other than the issue of Palestine-Israel can pull the nerve of the whole world and become the barometer of the Middle Eastern political ecology. Being well aware of the high international attention to the Palestine-Israel issue and the overall situation of the Middle East is at stake to the issue, China decided to send special envoy to the issue since 2002, actively conducting mediation diplomacy between the Arabs and Israelis, which has vigorously pushed for the Palestine-Israel peace process. Undoubtedly, Chinese realistic interest is so limited on the issue that its mediation diplomacy is more of a response to the international responsibility than an account of realistic interest. By contrast, since the international attention is low over the territorial dispute between Saudi Arabia and Qatar, and the issue has been under control, China has not yet come to the mediation.

D. Intractability of the crisis settlement

Hypothesis four: the easier the hot-spot issue in the Middle East can be settled, ① Cao Gangchuan met with Chief of Joint Staff of Sudanese armed forces Haj Ahmed El Gaili, PLA Daily, April 3, 2007, p.1.

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China is more likely to involve in the mediation diplomacy.

For the past ten years, the degree of China’s enthusiasm in settling hot-spot issues in the Middle East was conversely proportionate to China’s assessment of the difficulties of the settlement. Generally speaking, China would less likely put in diplomatic resources and come to mediation if the issue concerned is hard to be solved, and vice versa. For example, in the wake of the outbreak of Sudan crisis, the central government in Khartoum agreed to hold referendum on southern Sudan’s independence, which greatly increased the chances for the success of China’s mediation diplomacy effort and therefore allowed special envoy Liu Guijin to conduct frequent mediation diplomacy. By contrast, China did not participate in the mediation between Iran and United Arab Emirates on island’s issues, nor in mediation between various armed forces of Somalia, mainly because the two crises were intractable and the conflicting parties are unlikely to reach compromise in short term, for which China did not want to run too much diplomatic risk.

The following section will analyze some real cases to test the above four hypotheses.

V. Empirical Analysis: Four Categories of China’s Mediation Diplomacy in the Middle East

The Middle East is a region of the most salient hot-spot issues in the world and becoming the priority and conundrum of global governance, which include Arab-Israeli peace process issue, territorial disputes of Mid-Eastern countries, WMD proliferation in the region, ethnic and sectarian conflict issues, etc. The dramatic change in the Middle East broke out in the late 2010 has made social, sectarian and ethnic contradictions even worse. Domestic hot-spots in Libya, Syria, Yemen and Bahrain emerged from the surface of water to become new host-spot issues in the Middle East. Therefore, U.S., EU, Russia, the UN, League of Arab States, African Union, the Gulf Cooperation Council, and other powers, international organizations and the Middle Eastern countries thronged to the mediation diplomacy, which maintained stability of the region, preventing hot-spot issues from upgrading, enhancing their international influence and enabling the

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Middle East issues become an important arena of big-power relations.①

Table 1 demonstrates that an important means with which the big powers use to participate in the Middle Eastern governance is mediation diplomacy whose subjects comprise not only world powers and international organizations, but also the Middle East countries like Qatar and Saudi Arabia.② Table 1 also shows that China did participate in the settlement of hot-spot issues in the Middle East though to different degrees and China’s mediation diplomacy is selective. China’s mediation diplomacy in the Middle East break down into four tiers: deep intervention, proactive participation, limited mediation and generally detached.

A. Deep intervention The term deep intervention refers to China’s huge put-in of diplomatic resources including sending special envoy and tackling hot-spot issues. China’s realistic interest are directly related to the hot-spot issues; China maintains good relations with conflicting parties; the international community pins high hope on the settlement of hot-spot issues; and hot-spot issues are strongly controllable. In the process of those mediations, Chinese government paid high attention, top leaders including president, premier and ministers often directly participated in the mediations and designed negotiation proceedings for the sake of allowing disputed parties be able to reach compromise in a short time, or at least preventing crises from upgrading.

Table 1: the Middle Eastern hot-spot issues and mediation diplomacies the Middle Eastern crisis

Conflicting parties Nature of conflict Mediator

Sudan issue Contradiction between Southern and northern Sudanese and between northern and Darfur

Southern Sudanese for independence, southern-northern for border and oil, Khartoum and western Darfur on religious contradiction

UN, African Union, U.S., EU, China

Iran’s nuke issue Iran, U.S., Israel Iran hostility with Israel and West

UN, U.S., UK, France,

① Ding Long and Zhao Yuanhao, “Qatar Foreign Policy and Practice”, Arab World Studies, 2010, no.1, p.9. ② K. Venkata Raman, ed., Dispute Settlement through the United Nations, New York: Oceana Publications, 1977.

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Germany, Russia, China

Palestine-Israel issue Arab countries, Palestine, Israel

Palestine state building，Palestine-Israel borders, refugee’s return, claims on Jerusalem

UN, U.S., EU, Russia, China,

Civil war in Libya Kadafi government and Libya Interim Committee

Power struggle France, Russia, China, League of Arab States, African Union

Syrian crisis Basher government and oppositions

Power struggle UN, League of Arab States, Russia, China

Somali issue Armed factions and political forces

On the form of coalition government

UN, African Union, U.S., EU

Cyprus issue Northern and southern Cyprus

For peace between the north and south

UN, U.S.

Western-Sahara issue Morocco and Algeria Claims on Western-Sahara

UN, African Union

Disputes on Gulf islands

Iran and United Arab Emirates

Claims on sovereignty on Abu Moussa Island, greater Tunb and lesser

Tunb

Trilateral Committee of Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Oman,

Lebanon issue Suni, Shiite, Christian sects Power struggle UN, U.S., EU,

Qatar

Yemen crisis Saleh's Government and opposition Power struggle

UN, Gulf Cooperation Council

Bahrain crisis Bahrain government and opposition

On direction of political reform

Gulf Cooperation Council

In the crisis management, China often approaches with aids and pressure. On the

one hand, China provided all parties with necessary economic aids, skewed trade policy, tariff reduction on import commodities, invited leader of all parties to visit China and provide military aid and military training projects in order to reach agreement between conflicting parties. On the other hand, China would leverage cutting economic aids and limiting high-level exchanges as to pressure all parties in order to reach effect of negotiation in a short time. For example, SINOPEC gained profit in Sudan totaled $25.8 billion or net profit of $14.69 billion to compare with GDP of Sudan worth $38 billion of the same year.① China and Sudan are like a commonwealth of interest, which is the practical foundation of China’s mediation

① Li Hongwu and Li Xinfeng, Studies on Darfur Issue in global Dimension, World Knowledge Press, 2008, pp.119, 246.

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diplomacy. China’s combination policy of aids and pressure, its offer of solutions and its mediation diplomacy for the sake of peaceful separation of the two parties have prevented them from large-scale military conflicts. China also actively mediated on the Darfur issue and raised constructive proposals that contributed wisdom to the peace and stability of Darfur region. In February 2007, President Hu Jintao visited Sudan, talked with President Bashir, and met with First Vice President Mayardit and Vice President Ali Taha.①

In May 2007, China set up the special envoy mechanism on Darfur issue and Ambassador Liu Guijin visited southern Sudan, other African Countries, Europe and U.S. for many times, actively communicated with UN, African Union, League of Arab Countries and EU, and took advantage of China’s assumption of the rotating president of the Security Council to push for the 1769 resolution that resulted in reaching the agreement of UN, African Union, and Sudan government on AU-UN "hybrid operation" and sent a 315 troops of multidimensional operation force.② China’s mediation in Sudan is of the category of deep intervention. B. Proactive participation Proactive participation refers to China’s put-in of a great deal of diplomatic resources, which includes sending special envoy to participate in the settlement of hot-spot issues and usually with the participation of Chinese national leaders in the mediation. In contrast to the category of deep intervention, in proactive participation China usually does not direct the rhythm of negotiations, nor sets agenda and provides economic aids and political pressure to impact negotiation. China is pleased to see the solution of hot-spot issues, though it declines to put in diplomatic resources to speed up the process of negotiation, nor expects to see outcomes of negotiations in a short time. For examples, China’s special envoy has been conducted shuttle diplomacy for years. Wang Shijie, Sun Bigan and Wu Sike, former and incumbent special envoys, often shuttled between Pakistan, Israel, Egypt and Jordan for promoting peace and negotiation. China also actively participated in “5+1” mechanism to urge dialogue and negotiation on Iran’s nuke issue and sought solution through multilateral mechanisms under UN mandate. For

① Foreign Policy Research Division, China Diplomacy 2008, World Knowledge Press, 2008, p.173. ② Li Hongwu and Li Xinfeng, Studies on Darfur Issue in global Dimension, World Knowledge Press, 2008, p.119, and pp.21-22.

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example, on April 18, 2006, the vice foreign ministers of 6 countries held close-door meeting in Moscow; on June 1 the same year, the meeting was held in Vienna and reached agreement to launch a new program for settling Iran’s nuclear issue; on April 16, 2008, directors of foreign ministers of six countries and Director General for External Relations of the Council of European Union held meeting in Shanghai in discussing program of resuming negotiation on Iran’s nuclear issue; and in April 2012, the meeting of “5+1” was held in Istanbul, Turkey, on which China proposed again to address Iran’s nuclear issue through diplomatic means within the UN framework.① As did on Palestine-Israel issue, China proactively participated in the mediation, though China did not seek in dominating agenda-setting nor proposed programs.

C. Limited mediation Limited mediation refers to the category of the mediation that China puts in little diplomatic resources, either participating in mediation for the time being, or does it on a modest level. Generally speaking, those hot-spot issues are little related to China’s realistic interest; the conflicting parties in concern are limited to Chinese influence; the international attention is low; or no peaceful solution is available in the short term. In those cases, Chinese special envoys, if any, will be sent temporarily and symbolically. For example, when Syrian crisis deteriorated in 2012, Syrian opposition parties were invited to Beijing on February 9. In February 17, Chinese special envoy, Vice Foreign Minister Zhai Jun and his 5 people entourage arrived in Damascus for a visit of two days. Zhai Jun met Syrian leaders and political parties in order to make “some contribution to” and “play a constructive role in” addressing the Syrian issue.② In the category of limited mediation, China’s top leaders seldom participate in mediations in person. They instead send officials of Chinese Embassies or lower officials to the mediations, or invite conflicting parties to China. For example, on June 21-22, 2011, Mahmoud Jibril, head of the executive committee of Libya's ruling National Transitional Council (NTC) visited Beijing and China launched limited mediation diplomacy between Kadafi government and NTC.③ In this kind of mediation, China expounds its position and principle of negotiation rather than lays down timetable and venue.

① Steven Erlanger, “As Nuclear Talks with Iran Restart, New Hopes for Deal,” New York Times, April 12, 2012. ② “Chinese government arrived in Damascus”, People’s Daily (overseas), April 18, 2012, p.4. ③ “Libya’s opposition leader visits China”, Global Times, June 21, 2011

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D. Generally detached The “generally detached” mediation can be viewed as “indirect mediation”, which means that China would take part not proactively, but indirectly in crisis management conducted by international organizations like UN. Those hot-spot issues are less related to China’s realistic interest; China and conflicting parties have little to speak of strategic confidence; China can do little to influence the parties; the international community, especially big powers, pay little attention to the issues; or they are long-term hot-spot issues that cannot be solved in the short term. For example, China did not participate proactively in the mediation on issues of Lebanon, Somali, Yemen, Bahrain, western Sahara, Iran and the United Arab Emirates, but instead played a indirect role via UN. This is a generally detached category of mediation diplomacy.

Table 2: Four categories of Chinese mediation diplomacy in the Middle East

Crisis in the Middle East

Categories of mediation

Relevance of interests

Influence of power

International attention

Intractability of crisis

Sudan issue① Deep

interventionstrong big high average②

Iran’s issue Proactive

participationstrong medium high great

Palestine-Israel issue

Proactive participation

strong medium high great

Libya civil war

Limited mediation

medium little high great

Syria crisis Limited

mediation medium little high great

Somali issue Generally detached

medium little medium great

Cyprus issue Generally detached

weak little low great

West Sahara Generally weak little low great

① Including southern Sudan’s independence issue and western Sudan’s Darfur issue. ② Since Khartoum government agreed the southern Sudan to hold referendum for independence, the issue is not difficult to solve. But southern Sudan,northern Sudan and Darfur are contradicted on resource allocation, which are difficult to solve by mediation.

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issue detached Disputes on Gulf islands

Generally detached

medium medium medium great

Lebanon issue Generally detached

weak little low great

Yemen crisis Generally detached

medium little high little

Bahrain crisis Generally detached

weak little high average

Three basic rules can be identified in Table 2: first, China’s mediation

diplomacies in the Middle East varied; second, Chinese mediation in the Middle East hinges on its relevant interest, its relevant influence, international attention, and intractability of the issues to be solved. China will be more motivated to come to the mediation when its relevant interest, relevant influence, and international attention go up, while the intractability goes down, and vice versa. Third, China’s mediation is dynamic rather than static. China’s input of diplomatic resources and the depth of its involvement in mediation vary to different stages, different backgrounds and different leaderships.

VI. Conclusion

As China further grows in its comprehensive national strength, the Middle East becomes an important part of China’s “bigger-periphery” diplomacy and thus an important strategic bolster of China’s peaceful rise. China’s mediation in the Middle East is an important part of China’s omnidirectional diplomacy, which is positively significant to enhance China’s protection of its overseas interest, its image of a responsible power, its soft power, and its coordination with other powers.

China’s mediation in the Middle East covers hot-spot issues with following features: first, mediation among different parties and ethnicities of sovereign states, such as Darfur issue, Libyan issue and Syrian issue. It should not be ruled out that China will involve in addressing the internal conflicts of Lebanon, Yemen and Somali under the framework of multilateral organizations. Second, China launches mediation diplomacy among the Middle East countries to address their territorial and resource disputes between Israel and Palestine, and between Iran and United Arab Emirates. Third, China mediates between extra-regional powers and the Middle East countries on issues like Iran’s nuclear issue. To this research, therefore,

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China’s mediation diplomacies in the Middle East are mainly determined by four factors: relevance of interest, impact of power, international attention and intractability of the crisis settlement, which conversely determines the form of China’s mediation diplomacies that turns out to be four: deep intervention, proactive participation, limited mediation and generally detached.

As a permanent member of the UN Security Council, China has every reason to

play a more positive role in addressing the Middle East issues. Moreover, China’s mediation diplomacy plays a role of bridge among conflicting parties of the Middle East. China is different from U.S., Europe and Russia. China never colonized in the Middle East, nor left “historic burden” in the region. In addition, Chinese culture is peaceful and reconciliatory, and “Chinese doctrine of mean” emphasizes eclecticism, unbiased, detached and non-interference in domestic politics of other countries. China will only put forward constructive resolutions, sometimes individually and sometimes in concert.① Chinese diplomats are more patient than their Western counterparts and usually take conviction and persuasion rather than pressure and coercion, helpful for reaching agreement. China’s mediation diplomacy in the Middle East is increasingly sophisticated, and will be very likely to become a public good that China provides the international community with and enhance the image of a responsible power of China and its soft-power construction.

Those being said above, China’s mediation diplomacy has its downsides. First,

the Middle East is low in its position in China’s general diplomatic vision at least to date. It is not even behind world powers and periphery countries, but also behind Africa and Latin America in China’s diplomatic prioritization. Thus, the diplomatic resources that China puts in the Middle East diplomacy is severely insufficient and the unique role of the Middle East in extending China’s strategic opportunity period is prevented from being viewed from a strategic high. Second, some in Chinese academics and politics believe that the Middle East hot-spot issues are so complicated and intractable that they waste diplomatic resources and mediation diplomacy. But they actually overlook the issues to stand as a new field for big-power strategic cooperation and for U.S., EU, Russia, China and groups of powers to build up a more stable cooperation relationship.②

① Chen Jiehua, China’s Diplomatic Strategy in the 21st Century, Current Affairs Publication House, 2001, p.67. ② Sun Degang, “China’s Quasi-alliance Diplomacy in the New Period”, World Economics and Politics, no.3, p.57.

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Third, China lacks a powerful pool of talent and reserve of knowledge to support its mediation diplomacy in the Middle East. Only by mastering the Middle East languages, Islamic history, culture, national conditions and political system, can diplomats in the mediation enhance their own personal attraction and strategic communication ability, and enable Chinese option acceptable to all parties. In sum, China’s mediation diplomacy in the Middle East started from scratch, deepening gradually, to enhance China’s international influence, moral attraction, cultural affinity, and also consolidate the diplomatic theory and practice with Chinese characteristics.

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Does culture affect in the financial decision making of rational man? Chinese vs. Anglo-Saxon Perspective

Clemente Hernandez-Rodriguez & Mauricio Cervantes-Zepeda∗

Goal In traditional finance theory, models assume a rational man that is used to make decisions that always maximize his benefit. In this model, it does not matter if the rational man is German or Chinese because the decision making does not depend on a nationality or a culture. In this paper, we designed an experiment in which we polled individuals, from two different cultural schemes, about the same financial phenomenon.

First, we take into account that the observed phenomenon is the same. If culture does not affect the making of financial decisions, the survey results from both groups will be quite similar. On the other hand, if culture is a variable to consider in the different models of the financial market behaviors, the results of the survey of both groups will be significantly different. Summarizing, in this paper we try to show evidences, so that we can prove that the variable culture is important and it should be considered in the different kind of financial models.

Introduction After many years of research, the efficient market and the rational man hypothesis have failed. Other models have proved that there is something else required on the equation.

First, research was started to work with the individual psychological bias, in other words, Behavioral Finance. Recently, it has surged a series of papers in which

∗ Clemente Hernandez-Rodriguez is Professor at the Instituto Tecnológico y de Estudios Superiores de Monterrey (ITESM) Campus Guadalajara, Guadalajara, México; Mauricio Cervantes-Zepeda is Director of Asia Pacific Center, Instituto Tecnologico y de Estudios Superiores de Monterrey (ITESM) Campus Guadalajara, Guadalajara, Mexico. The authors appreciate the support of this research via the Research Chair Asia Pacific: China. Business and Competitiveness. Instituto Tecnologico y de Estudios Superiores de Monterrey, Campus Guadalajara, Mexico.

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the cultural and financial variables have been related. The application of cultural concepts in financial areas has result attractive and it has won multiple adepts. Stultz & Williamson have provided a detailed conceptual discussion about the culture and its importance in finance. They proposed that the culture, measured through religion and language, affects to variables such as the rights of investors.① Even, they show evidence that religion is a better predictor of rights of investors than the level of country’s international trade liberalization. Nonetheless, they find that the effect of culture decreases when the level of international trade liberalization increases. Grinblatt & Keloharju proposes that investors tend to invest more in enterprises that are physically closer to their residence, communicating to people in the same native language, and with a CEO who has the same nationality or culture of the investor.②

Guiso et al provides an extensive discussion about how culture affects the investment decisions in financial markets.③ At the moment of deciding whether to invest in shares, the investor is afraid of being cheated and this perception of risk is influenced not only by the individual characteristics of the company where he is to invest, or the capital market where he is to participate; but also by individual and cultural characteristics of investors. Less reliable investors tend to invest less in the stock market. According to Guiso et al, this explains why many of the United States’ richest people do not invest in the Stock Exchange. It also explains differences of participation in the Stock Exchange among countries.④

Markus & Kitayama proposed that individuals from individualistic cultures tend to see themselves as “autonomous and independent persons”.⑤ In collectivist cultures, the individuals perceive themselves as “connected and less differentiated from others”. In individualistic cultures, like the United States, individuals give more value to their forecasts in function of their personal skills and they are used to

① Stulz, R. M., & Williamson R., “Culture, Openness, and Finance,” Journal of Financial Economics, vol.70, no.3, 2003, pp.313-349. ② Grinblatt, M., & Keloharju, M., “How Distance, Language, and Culture Influence Stockholdings and Trades,” Journal of Finance, vol. 56, no.3, 2001, p.1053. ③ Guiso, L., Sapienza, P. y Zingales, L., “Trusting the Stock Market,” ECGI – Finance Working Paper, 2007. ④ Ibid. ⑤ Markus, R., & Kitayama S., “Culture and the Self: Implications for Cognition, Emotion, and Motivation,” Psychological Review, vol.98, no.2, 1991, pp.224–253.

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see themselves more like winners; therefore, they overestimate their own abilities, such that they feel that they are above average. This situation does not happen in collectivist cultures as Japan.

Traditional explanations for the differences in financial systems fall primarily on the legal framework, and on the reduction of risk. These two concepts are not mutually exclusive. The individual perception of uncertainty is strongly influenced by national culture. Hofstede documents that a variety of perceptions towards risk in a wide sample of different countries. ① Kwok & Tadesse show that; the configuration of the financial system of a country is related to cultural dimensions; such as, to risk aversion.② Countries with a strong risk aversion, as a cultural dimension, are associated with financial systems that are more focused on banking than focused in the Stock Exchange. These papers also provide a link between literature on culture and financial literacy.

Another study that examines the cultural and financial variables is the one conducted by Chui, Titman and Wei. ③They show that cultural differences between nations affect yields in capital markets. Specifically they find a statistically significant positive relation between individualism with the purchase and sales volume in the stock market and the price volatility as well as the size of the prize "Momentum". Momentum Award is the utility that has a zero cost portfolio. It invests in last year's profitable stocks and taking a short position in the losers.④

Breuer & Quinten make a call to create a field of research named "Cultural finance”.⑤ It is proved with methods taken from Game Theory and Institutional Economy the importance of cultural values in making financial decisions.

① Hofstede, G., “The Cultural Relativity of Organizational Practices and Theories,” Journal of International Business Studies, vol.14, no.2, 1983, pp.75-89. ② Kwok, C. & Tadesse S., “National Culture and Financial Systems,” Journal of International Business Studies, vol.37, no.2, 2006, pp.227-247. ③ Chui A., Timan S., Wei J., “Individualism and Momentum around the World,” The Journal of Finance, LXV (1), 2010, pp.361-392. ④ See Jegadeesh N. & Titman, S., “Returns to Buying Winners and Selling Losers: Implications for Stock Market Efficiency,” Journal of Finance, vol.48, no.1, 1993, pp.65–91. ⑤ Breuer, W. & Quinten, B., “Cultural Finance,” Working Paper (disponible en SSRN), 2009.

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Methodology Nowadays, Shanghai city presents a unique position to make a comparative research study of cultural perception. On the one hand, the Chinese Financial System is in a time of great change. In 2001, China signed its adherence’s commitment in order to join the World Trade Organization (WTO), which meant that it would commit to a profound reform of their financial system. They want them to go from a state system to an open market allowing the involvement of international banking in China, and in turn, internationalizing the Chinese banks.

When a system is in changes, the users become more sensible and critical in order to evaluate whether these changes are being taken to improve or they are a throwback. On the other hand, the Shanghai city is a very cosmopolitan city, with a big foreigner’s community which is mainly Americans, Europeans, especially Germans, and other from the rest of the world.

Taking advantage of these two situations: a financial system in flux and a multicultural city, we did a survey to assess whether there are differences in perception due to cultures. This means that we do the same survey about the financial system to Chinese citizens and foreigners (Anglo-Saxons); both groups should be residents of Shanghai. If there are significant differences, in the responses of the two groups, it could be attributed to the cultural differences. It will be taken care that the variables, of both groups, are similar except for nationality.

In this survey, we will try to see if variables as confidence, risk aversion, individualism, proximity, or cultural distance, affect or not the Chinese financial system’s perception.

The experiment We gathered two groups, both with the following characteristics: individuals in full work cycle, between 25 and 50 years old, who worked in the city of Shanghai for at least the last two years. We want them between 25 and 50 years old to make sure that they are in contact with the financial system (through a checkbook, savings account, internet banking, among others). It was a requirement for them to have a university degree (except for an entrepreneur interviewed who just had a high school degree), to speak English, and to work professionally within middle management, direction or if they used to be owners of their own company.

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Companies could be small (restaurant, office consultant, designer, among others) but were avoided businesses like informal trade or unregistered businesses in order to avoid skewing the results.

The first group consists of Chinese citizens no matter their native city. The second group only consists of Anglo-Saxon citizens mainly Germans, British, and Americans.

Results Main characteristics of the polled groups Table 1 shows the main control characteristics of both groups. We can see that age, gender, and professional activity of both groups are very similar. One noticeable difference is in the level of income; even though the level of jobs is generally similar between both groups, the expatriate from a foreign company enjoys a higher level of salary and benefits than the residents of Shanghai; as seen in the sample.

Table 1. Statistical data from both encuested groups Statistical data from polled individuals

Anglo-Saxons Chinese Average Age 37 34 Average Income 35,545 26,477 (annual in US Dollars) Gender Male 29 26 Female 21 24 Scolarship High School 1 0 University 35 42 Post Graduate 14 8 Professional activity Mid management 34 32 Direct 9 7 Enterpreneur 7 11

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Furthermore, it is seen a greater number of executive employees with graduate education in the foreigners' sample than in the Chinese's sample. However, for practical purposes of this study, we consider both groups sufficiently homogeneous so that the results will not be distorted by some of these differences. The important thing was to count with two groups; in spite of their small size, they were very representative of the economic agent that participates in making financial decisions of financial companies. In other words, there are prepared individuals, owners, or those that belong to mid or high direction of companies which had good economic and income level.

Survey’s answers In Appendix 1, it is found the entire survey with the sum of answers per choice. The results are the following: First, we asked whether for their bank services they used to use mainly Chinese banks, foreign banks in China, foreign banks overseas, or another option. The most practical option, for any resident in Shanghai, are the two first options. Actually, Chinese’ banks show bigger branches than foreign banks that are starting to get in the Chinese market. The 76% of Chinese people in the group prefer to use Chinese banks against the 32% of Anglo-Saxons. This is consistent with the cultural closeness effect documented by Grinblatt & Keloharju.① They say that we prefer companies of our own culture that are closer to us.

The second question is to know which of the bank services are used the most. For Anglo-Saxons in the group predominates credit card: 45%, the checkbook: 42% and the internet banking: 22%. For each group of Chinese, the service that was used the most is the savings account: 25% and credit card: just 23%. This shows evidence of a cultural difference that is significant: Chinese people prefer to save money than to use credit cards in comparison with the Anglo-Saxon.

In order to invest their money surplus, Chinese prefer Chinese funds (inversion societies, or mutual funds): 52% and Chinese banks: 38%. However, the foreigners prefer funds located in foreign: 74%. Again, this is consistent with the effect reported by Grinblatt & Keloharju about cultural closeness.②

Regarding the relative savings (based on monthly income) 62% of the Chinese ① Grinblatt, M., & Keloharju, M., “How Distance, Language, and Culture Influence Stockholdings and Trades,” Journal of Finance, vol. 56, no.3, 2001, p.1053. ② Ibid.

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claim to have savings of over four months, versus 24% of Anglo-Saxons.

Regarding general perception of Chinese bank, it’s had a better perception of Chinese people than of Anglo-Saxons (cultural closeness effect). On whether it is reliable, 64% of Chinese say yes, compared to 42% of foreigners. Whether it is transparent, 52% of Chinese think so, against 30% of foreigners. Whether it is manipulated by the government 70% of Chinese think that is not, against 68% of foreigners. Whether it is corrupt: 70% of Chinese think that it is not, against 52% of foreigners.

However, although Chinese group shows to have more confidence in his bank, when we ask them whether they consider it efficient in comparison with the international banking just 24% says that it actually does, in comparison with 46% of foreigners. This may be because Chinese having no experience with international banks and due to the massive publicity that carry out international banks undervalue its attributes with respect of the foreigner that has had experience with both banking. Additionally, this highlights the cultural closeness effect even though they recognize that their products are not better than international ones they prefer them because they are from their culture.

In question 6, we did the same questions as in last section, but now it is about the Shanghai stock exchange and the answers are very similar. The Chinese group is more confident than the foreigner, but the foreigner relatively sees it more efficiently than the Chinese. It should be noted that both groups increased much the answers: I do not know, because everyone is customer from banking, but not in the stock market.

About the loans profile that they use, according to question 7, we found that 80% of the sample of Chinese people already has some kind of mortgage loan against 38% of foreigners. The reason of this difference is mainly because Chinese people want to stay in the city and invest in a dwelling and also it is easier for them to acquire the loan. As long as foreigners usually are passing temporarily, and also it is harder for them to have a loan.

The same situation is found in car’s case. For foreigners, it is difficult to drive in Shanghai (if they do not speak Chinese and they cannot read the road signs, then it is very hard to drive in China), hence they prefer public transportation, or they prefer to use a car with company’s chauffeur. Regarding the use of the credit card is

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a little higher in whites: 90%, against 82% in China. The point that attracts the most attention is that 70% of Chinese say to have a family loan against only 14% of foreigners. This is an effect very significant in a collectivist society where the social network aims itself socially and financially.

In Question 8 we questioned whether they perceive an improvement in Chinese banking services in the last 5 years. The 76% of Chinese say that they have improved and 24% that have improved drastically. 72% of foreigners say that they have improved and just an 8% perceive that they have improved drastically. A possible explanation is that in general a foreigner has less time to reside in China and their comparative horizon is less than Chinese who did see in the beginning of the decade a bank without computers when everything was based in countless copies and stamps which does more drastic its comparison with foreigners’ that arrived in a China with a automatized banking.

Regarding the improvement of Shanghai’s stock exchange in the last 5 years, foreigners are still more skeptical than Chinese. The 76% of Chinese say that Shanghai stock exchange has improved against only 18% of foreigners. This could be because this group is limited in the series B where there’s less options and liquidity than in series A of exclusive Chinese access.

In question 10, we asked them about insurance they have. We found a big difference, the group of 50 Anglo-Saxons in overall they declared to have 103 insurances with an average of 2 per person against 47 of Chinese group that is less than a half. If we link this with question 7 where we see that Chinese count with more familiar credits, we will support that Chinese culture is collectivist and it generates an aim familiar network, and lend support in misfortune, against Anglo-Saxons. Furthermore, if the Anglo-Saxon is an expatriate and he is away from his family, other than its natural individualism, the sensation of isolation increases and from there the necessity of consuming more insurances than Chinese because Chinese feel protected by their social network.

Finally, we ask exclusively to foreigners how do they feel about banking and stock exchange in comparison with their country. Regarding banking, the 60% considered it deficient or very deficient. Independently of which is the reality, it persists the effect of: mine is better.

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Conclusions

We analyzed the survey results about Chinese financial system out of two groups living in the financial transformation phenomenon from the same place, Shanghai. They had similar characteristics like age, gender, professional position, but with different cultures that lead us to conclude that culture is a differentiator ingredient. The evidence provided suggests that cultural characteristics influence the answers and the way of acting from individuals, finding substantial differences between both groups. Hence, this research provides evidence to show that culture affects man in making decisions related to money, their personal finance and the financial system and it disagrees with the assumption in traditional models where men are purely rational and the moves simply by the maximization of economic benefits.

As future research we could repeat a similar experiment but only with employees of the financial system, as money managers, so that, we can take advantage of the increase in foreign companies and foreigners in China's financial system, specifically in the city of Shanghai.

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The Energy-Water-Food Nexus and Its Implications for China-Africa Green Cooperation in Rio+20

YU Hongyuan∗ Global warming and the resulting climate change present the world with major and potentially devastating challenges. They lead to environmental degradation/scarcity and a radical reform of the energy mix among industrial countries, in addition to other resource scarcity concerns. ① A generation has passed since the states’ governments began to seriously consider that the climate change has emerged as one of the top security challenges of the early 21st century, and presented the world with an array of shared economic, resource, environmental and energy challenges; “global climate change poses a real and present danger of environmental destruction and human dislocation on a scale that we’ve never seen.”②

Such nexus challenges of water, energy and food have generated a perceptible shift of security values in the world since 2011. UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon argued, "In many parts of the world, water scarcity is increasing and rates of growth in agricultural production have been slowing. At the same time, climate change is exacerbating risk and unpredictability for farmers, especially for poor countries who are the most vulnerable and the least able to adapt, ensuring sustainable use of most critical finite resources is the key."③ Intergovernmental

∗ Prof. YU Hongyuan is Deputy Director of Institute for Comparative Politics and Public Policy Shanghai Institutes for International Studies (SIIS). ① Some of these ideas and a discussion of climate change can be found in: Yu Hongyuan, “Environmental Change and Asia-Pacific: China Responds to Global Warming," Global Change, Peace, and Security, vol. 17, issue 1, 2005; “Knowledge and Climate Change Policy Coordination in China,” East Asia: An International Quarterly. vol. 21, no. 3; “Global Environmental Regimes and Policy Coordination in China,” Journal of Chinese Political Science, vol. 9, no. 2, 2004; and Global Warming and China's Environmental Diplomacy in Nova Science Publishers, 2008. ② “Transcript of remarks by Senator John Kerry, Senate Foreign Relations Committee, Subject: U.S.-China Partnership on the Road to the U.N. Climate Change Conference 2009, National Press Club”, in: Federal News Service, 29 July 2009. ③ Anthony Smallwood, “The Global Dimension of the Fight Against Climate Change”, Foreign Policy, vol.167, 2008, pp.8-9.

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Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) always argues that Africa is most threatened by global warming. While not responsible for the threat of climate change,① African countries are extremely vulnerable to energy-water-food nexus challenges by climate change. Thomas Schelling argues that China and Africa will suffer from climate change more than developed countries.② The IPCC's Fourth Assessment Report estimates that carbon dioxide emissions from energy use could rise by 45 percent to 110 percent between 2000 and 2030. ③ The report indicates that two-thirds to three-quarters of the increased emissions would come from developing countries. The report also makes it clear that the greater the efforts to reduce global greenhouse gas emissions, the less severe would be the impact of climate change. Considering China and South Africa are key stones for BAISC group, we should attach much more importance to China and African countries' cooperation and joint actions on nexus challenges by adapting and mitigating global warming for current and future generations.

I. Water-energy-food Nexus Climate change presents the world with a broad range of stakeholders from the water, energy and food sectors in an effort to improve understanding of the interdependencies and develop a joint perspective on the common challenges. Global energy consumption is projected to grow by close to 49% from 2007 to 2035. Food production requires water and energy, the extraction of water requires energy, and energy production requires water. Food prices are highly sensitive to energy costs – which indirectly affect the GDP of a country as high costs of processing, irrigation, fertiliser and transportation affect production and lead to lower exports. It’s becoming ever more difficult to provide universal access to water, food and energy in the crisis time of climate change,” close to 1 billion people are undernourished, 0.9 billion lack access to safe water and 1.5 billion have no source

① IPCC, Climate Change 2007: Scientific Basis, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, http://www.ipcc.int. ② Thomas C. Schelling, 'What Makes Greenhouse Sense?' Foreign Affairs, 81, 3, 2002, p.2. ③ IPCC, Climate Change 2007：Mitigation of Climate Change of Working Group III to the Fourth Assessment Report of the intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

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of electricity.”① Figure 1 Water-energy-food nexus②

Firstly, energy is fundamental to the prosperity and security of nations. However, any successful international effort to mitigate threats to human and national security posed by climate change must inevitably include controlling access to fossil fuel energy. Evidently, preventing catastrophic climate change is actually an energy challenge which has caught great attention of the entire human race. The human dependence on modern energy service or sustainable future in a modern society is ten to one hundred times greater than it was in an agrarian society. Climate change is caused mostly by traditional energy using - notably the burning of coal, oil and other fossilfuels - resulting in the greenhouse effect.③

Secondly, water is human basic need and required to produce food. Roughly 70 percent of global freshwater is used for agriculture, food and water scarcity will interconnect.④ By 2030, demand for water is expected to grow by some 40%, and for food by 50%,⑤ requiring a radical rethink of the world's approach to natural resources and consumption. According to the Comprehensive Assessment of Water Management in Agriculture a fifth of the world’s population live in areas of

① IEA Data, http :/ / data. iea. org/ ieastore/ stat slisting, Asp. 2009-4-1. ② Stockholm Environment Institute, 2011Understanding the Nexus, Background paper for the Bonn2011 Nexus Conference, ③ See Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, Climate Change 2001 (3 vols.), Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2001. ④ Granit.J., Löfgren.J. (eds.), “Water and Energy Linkages in the Middle East – Regional Collaboration Opportunities”, SIWI Paper 16 (SIWI, Stockholm), 2010. ⑤ “Water-food-energy nexus in Asia”, The Jakarta Post, October 7, 2010.

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physical water scarcity.① The definition of water scarcity is a region where water resources development is “approaching or has exceeded sustainable limits” and “more than 75% of river flows are withdrawn for agriculture, industry, and domestic purposes”. 2.6 billion people do not have access to improved sanitation facilities and 884 million people do not use improved sources of drinking water.② The future water use scenario data by McKinsey & Company indicates that by 2030, we will face a 40% global supply gap of accessible, reliable water supply for economic development.③

Thirdly, water is required to produce energy and energy is necessary to manage water for different uses. The two assets are strongly linked and the provision of both is part of basic foundation to stimulate growth and improve livelihoods. World-wide, about 20% of all electricity is generated by hydropower.④ As economies develop, however, the water demands for energy production rise rapidly. In the European Union (EU), for example, approximately 44% of water is used for energy production, and in the U.S. the annual rate is over 40%. Billions of people lack access to modern water and energy services.⑤ This fact, coupled with population growth and growing economies at the national and regional levels, will mean that the demand for water and energy services will grow significantly over the coming decades.⑥

Thus, the energy-water-food nexus security caused by climate change presents a huge challenge to all human beings and needs global cooperation between developed and developing countries. Increased demand for water, food and energy

① Jakob Granit, Andreas Lindström & Josh Weinberg, “Policy and Planning Needs to Value Water”, The European Financial Review, April - May 2012, pp. 22-26. ② Bishwanath Goldar, “Water Pricing and Abatement of Industrial Water Pollution: Study of Distilleries”, Environmental Economics and Policy Studies, 2009, Vol.4, Iss.2, pp. 95-113. ③ Jakob Granit, Andreas Lindström & Josh Weinberg, “Policy and Planning Needs to Value Water”, The European Financial Review, April - May 2012, pp. 22-26. ④ Diana Glassman, Michele Wucker, Tanushree Isaacman, and Corinne Champilou: "THE WATER-ENERGY NEXUS: Adding Water to the Energy Agenda", The World Policy Institute, March 2011. ⑤ Jakob Granit, Andreas Lindström & Josh Weinberg, “Policy and Planning Needs to Value Water”, The European Financial Review, April - May 2012, pp. 22-26. ⑥ The United Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs, World Population Prospects: The 2006 Revision, http://www.un.org/esa/population/publications/wpp2006/WPP2006_Highlights_rev.pdf.

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will increase demands placed on resources particularly during climate change.

II. The nexus Challenges for China and Africa 2.1 China and nexus challenges by climate change In most cases, according to IPCC report,① China is among the worst countries affected by water-energy-food nexus challenges due to its vulnerable geographic position and economic structure. With rapidly growing population and urbanization, fresh water and food supply will be the most sensitive to climate change-induced impacts.

Global warming has directly brought greater weather extremes, droughts in the North and floods in the South of China.Water security in China will similarly be threatened. The Chinese government acknowledges that “climate change has already caused changes in the distribution of water resources all over China.”② Moreover, the government foresees that “climate warming will possibly reinforce the drought trend in northern China, and intensify water scarcity and contradiction between water supply and demand.”③

Food security in China is most likely to be threatened by water scarcity by climate change because China is particularly vulnerable to water shortages.④ Chinese government acknowledged such adverse effects by stating that the “impact of future climate change on agriculture and livestock breeding will be mainly adverse. It is likely there will be a drop in the yield of the three major crops, white, paddy rice and corn.” ⑤ By 2030, “overall crop productivity in China could

① IPCC, Climate Change 2007: Scientific Basis, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. http://www.ipcc.int. ② Xinhua News Agency, “China National Action Plan on Climate Change”, http://news.xinhuanet.com/politics/2007-06/04/content_6196300.htm, Accessed on March3, 2008. ③ Xinhua News Agency, “China National Action Plan on Climate Change”, http://news.xinhuanet.com/politics/2007-06/04/content_6196300.htm.Accessed on March3, 2008. ④ IPCC, The Regional Impacts of Climate Change; Nielson and McElroy, 'Introduction and Overview', p. 24; Ying Aiwen, 'Impact of Global Climate Change on China's Water Resources', Environmental Monitoring and Assessment, vol.61, no.1, 2000, pp. 187-191. ⑤ China Xinhua News Agency, “China National Action Plan on Climate Change”, http://news.xinhuanet.com/politics/2007-06/04/content_6196300.htm, Accessed on March3, 2008.

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decrease by as much as 5-10 per cent if no action is taken.”① According to China's climate change country study, ”if recent climate change trends continue, much of Chinese agriculture is likely to face shorter growing periods and increased water deficits, requiring more irrigation”.② Under these conditions, by 2050 Chinese crop production (especially of wheat and corn) could decrease by 10%.③ In short, possible impacts of climate change on Chinese agriculture could be highly disruptive.④

China energy dependency and scarcity will be worse with climate change, water and food scarcity.⑤ China’s energy demand mix is dominated by fossil energy, of which coal constitutes 70.5% and oil 17.6%.⑥ Most experts believe that for the foreseeable future—at least 30 years—this fundamental reliance on coal will remain, if not increase dramatically.⑦ The dominant role of coal in China’s energy mix complicates Beijing’s ability to achieve certain abatement objectives. As the Chinese government articulated in its 2008 white paper, “China’s coal-dominated energy mix cannot be substantially changed in the near future, thus making the control of greenhouse gas emissions rather difficult.”⑧ Recently, China overtook the United States to become the largest emitter of carbon dioxide in the world. By 2020 China's average per capita energy consumption is expected to match the current global average, meaning that China alone will account for almost one-third of the world's total GHG emissions between 1990 and 2020.⑨ According to OECD

① National Intelligence Council 2009: 21-22. ② Research Team of China Climate Change Country Study, China Climate Change Country Study, p.109. ③ Interview with Xu Huiyou, China Agriculture Science and Technology Institute, 12 March 2003. ④ Nielson and McElroy, 'Introduction and overview', p. 24. ⑤ David Zweig, “China's Global Hunt for Energy”, Foreign Affairs, Sep/Oct2005, Vol. 84 Issue 5, p25-38, ⑥ BP Statistical Energy Review_2011, http://www.bp.com/assets/bp_internet/globalbp/globalbp_uk_english/reports_and_publications/statistical_energy_review_2011/STAGING/local_assets/pdf/Chinese_statistical_review_of_world_energy_full_report_2011.pdf. ⑦ BP Statistical Energy Review_2011, http://www.bp.com/assets/bp_internet/globalbp/globalbp_uk_english/reports_and_publications/statistical_energy_review_2011/STAGING/local_assets/pdf/Chinese_statistical_review_of_world_energy_full_report_2011.pdf. ⑧ “ ‘Full text’ of China’s policies, actions for addressing climate change,” BBC Monitoring Asia Pacific-Political, October 30, 2008. ⑨ Paul Harris and YU Hongyuan, “Environmental Change and Asia-Pacific: China Responds to Global Warming", Global Change, Peace, and Security, vol. 17, iss.1, (2005).

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report, “ Carbon dioxide emissions in China could rise to over 11 bn tonnes in 2030, compared with 8 bn tonnes in the US, about 4.5 bn tonnes in Europe (OECD countries), and just over 2 bn tonnes in India. ”① China is already the largest global producer of coal, wind and solar power; has more nuclear reactors under construction than anywhere in the world, and hosts the planet’s largest hydropower station in the Three Gorges Dam.

Thus, the challenge to meet growing demand for water, food and energy is perhaps very serious with global warming. China is heavily investing in maximizing efficiency in water use for energy generation and food production, but it must ensure enough water is available for production to be expanded. Even worse than other countries, China accounts for about 35 percent of world steel production and about 50 percent of the world’s production of cement.② These industries and associated activities are also thirsty for water and deepen the food production decrease.

Table 1 Energy Structure in 2010③

Oil(%) Gas(%) Coal(%)Renewable energy(%)

China 17.6 4.0 70.5 0.5

India 29.7 10.6 53.0 1.0

USA 37.2 27.2 23.0 1.7

World 33.6 23.8 29.6 1.3

① "Melting Asia: China, India, and climate change", Economist, Vol. 387 No. 8583,pp.29-30 ② Transcript of remarks by Mr. Trevor Houser, Director, Energy and Climate Practice, Rhodium Group, Session One of a Council on Foreign Relations Symposium on China and Climate Change and Findings of CFR’s Independent Task Force on Climate Change, Subject: Chinese Energy and Climate Strategy, Federal News Service, June 24, 2008, http://www.cfr.org/publication/16630/symposium_on_china_and_climate_change_session_one.html. ③ Christof Rühl,“ Global Energy After the Crisis”, Foreign Affairs，Volume 89, Issue 2, 2011, pp.32.

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2.2 Africa and Nexus Challenges by Climate Change According to the IPCC, the African continent is already warming faster than the global average and the impact of global warming on Africa is devastating.① The main challenges facing Africans will emanate from tropical storms, hurricanes and drought, more extreme water shortage and scarcity of foods, landslides, abnormal sea-level rises, and other extreme weather expected as a result of energy-food-water nexus by climate change.

Essentially, global warming leads to environmental degradation and resources scarcity. Energy-food-water nexus by climate change are by all means worse than anywhere in the world.② African countries emit very small amount of carbon emissions. However, many of them are energy insecure and depend on foreign aids and investments. The costs to Africa for adapting to nexus security by climate change would be sharply higher because of poverty and lack of investment. In Africa, the need is urgent. Nearly half a billion people- almost 70% of the population - have not enough access to electricity.③ As IPCC argued, Sub-Saharan Africa is facing a water, energy and food crisis caused by climate change which could cost it $17 billion per year.④

Water challenges in Africa include: water scarcity, lack of clean water investment, energy poverty for water management, which have decreased food production in African. In the meantime, the higher worldwide food prices have and continue to fall into conflicts with the demand of an increasing population in African continent. The FAO estimates that some 925 million of the world's people regularly go hungry, 265 million of them in Africa since 2011. East Africa's most severe drought in 60 years has left 10 million people desperately short of food.⑤ "At the current rate of temperature increase, global average temperature will have increased by 1.5 degrees by 2050, making Africa lose 22 percent of it maize, 17 percent of its sorghum/millet, 18 percent of its groundnut and 8 percent of its cassava, 75 percent of the areas can ① “Africa Suffers Most from Lack of Progress in Climate Change Negotiation”, US Fed News, November 17,2010. ② O. A. Ogunseitan, ‘Framing Environmental Change in Africa: Cross-scale Institutional Constraints on Progressing from Rhetoric to action against Vulnerability’, Global Environmental Change 13 (2003),pp.101-111. ③ IEA Data. http :/ / data. iea. org/ ieastore/ stat slisting. Asp. 2009-4-1. ④ IPCC, Climate Change 2007: Scientific Basis. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, http://www.ipcc.int ⑤ "How Africa Can Get the Energy It Needs Without Adding to Climate Change", All Africa, November 11, 2011.

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expect yield declines of at least 20 percent" said Dione.①

Sub-Saharan Africa countries (719 million people) have severely limited access to energy, consuming between them, if South Africa is discounted, less electricity than New York State (19.5 million people).② With its low per capita fossil energy use, Sub-Saharan Africa has the lowest emissions of the greenhouse gases that are the major cause of climate change. Lack of power has hampered Africa's efforts to meet the UN-agreed Millennium Development Goals (MDGs),③ and contributes to the deaths of hundreds of thousands of children under five every year through respiratory ailments caused by smoke fumes from open cooking fires. ④ For example, in Nigeria “Less than 30 percent of Nigeria’s population in rural areas has access to safe drinking water because the nation’s water supply has lagged behind its water needs.” ⑤

Moreover, urbanization in Africa is the lowest in the world, but its pace is the fastest worldwide. In Africa, more than half of urban population lives in slums and even in worse living conditions. Many areas in the city, equipped with no basic infrastructure, are vulnerable to energy-water-food challenges. III China and Africa Green Cooperation against Nexus Challenges Energy-Water-Food nexus, connected to climate change, present a huge challenge to all human beings. Cooperation between China and African countries, especially in the aspects of financial and technological cooperation, is needed to achieve a low-carbon development. Many developing countries at the industrialization stage face the risk of following the Western countries’ economic model from the late eighteenth century that was growth-oriented, unsustainable, and resource-intensive.

① "Africa can Increase Food Yield despite Climate Change Challenges, ECA's Dione", African Press Organization, December 6. ② CGIAR/All Africa Global Media via COMTEX, "Africa Most Threatened By Global Warming", May 24, All Africa, 2001. ③ United Nations Statistics Division, Millennium Development Goals Indicators, July 14, 2009, http://mdgs.un.org/unsd/mdg/default.aspx.2009-8-2 ④ Changes in Climate Trends Impacting Livelihoods and Food Security in the Sahel and West Africa All Africa, December 5, 2011. ⑤ Modupe Taiwo Odubela, "Attaining Sustainable Development in Nigeria: Water Quality Monitoring Management," in Michael Atchia and Shawna Tropp (eds.), Environmental Management: Issues and Solutions, Chichester: John Wiley, 1995, pp. 197.

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Table 2 energy poverty in developing countries① Affordability kWh/day at prices

(cents/kWh) Income $/cap/dayEnergy Budget

10% 6 10 20

India ($2) $0.20 3 2 1.0

Egypt ($5) $0.50 8 5 2.5 China ($7) $0.70 12 7 3.5 Peru ($10) $1.00 17 10 5

Croatia ($30) $3.00 50 30 15 OECD ($100+) $10.00 166 100 50

Thus, green development will be the necessary alternative for dealing with

Energy-Water-Food nexus challenges. China and the African countries need to promote green development while joining the global struggle against global warming and contributing to global economic growth. The cooperation between China and African countries is central to global efforts against Energy-Water-Food nexus with global warming. To make a breakthrough in Energy-Water-Food nexus challenges, the developed and developing countries must find a balance between the need for development, their energy consumption and carbon emissions. 3.1 The green development challenges before China and Africa The changing world is offering developing countries, particularly China less and less security, because of three things: (a) the battle for new energy commanding heights, (b) the melting down of global financial system and (c) the mistrust and misperceptions of different political and ideological systems.

As to the green development, there are more barriers for China and African countries:

1. Politics. Developed World tends to see low-carbon technology as the core part

of the national competitive power in the future, and therefore lack the political will to conduct transfer of such technology to the Developing World.

① IEA Data. http :/ / data. iea. org/ ieastore/ stat slisting. Asp. 2009-4-1.

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2. Market force. The instability of this market deters international technological investment from entry, while much of low-carbon technologies are mastered by enterprises from the Developed World. Such a situation encourages monopoly in low-carbon-tech market, resulting in market failure and rising difficulties of market entry to enterprises from the Developing World.

3. Finance: There are insufficient financial supports in technological transfer to

the Developing World, especially in areas which new, uncommercialized low-carbon technologies harbor extra costs.

4. Policies. Most developing countries lack stable, well-defined and easy-to-use

policies to give incentive for technological developers and technology-transfer receivers.

5. Incomprehensiveness. Much of the transfer deals focus more on technological

innovation but less on upgrade and maintenance, while professional trainings required for maintenance operations never appear on the deals.

6. Transparency. Most enterprises from the developing world retain insufficient

understanding to transferrable technologies, financing means, and technical demand from their respective industries, resulting in a lack of understanding of potential benefits from low-carbon technologies.

7. Institutional mechanism. For instance, inter-governmental organizations for

communications and performance with governmental policies are in huge demand of placement. Such case has always led to issues relating to multinational dispute pending to be resolved by effective relevant institutions.

8. Facilities and resources. The developing countries lack proper facilities and

operational resources. For instances, lack of transparency on trading information and standardized trading operations raises the cost of trading; overprotection in intellectual properties rights drives up prices high enough to be unaffordable for most developing countries; insufficient innovation mechanism restrict the ability for enterprises in these regions to adopt such technologies. 3.2 China and Africa should strengthen unity and uphold the principle of "the

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common but differentiated responsibility"① Essentially, the implications of global governance on climate change focus on three counts: Firstly, developed countries continue to dominate international climate change negotiations. The fight against global warming can be described in terms of common goods. Even though there are many internal contradictions among rich countries, they share a common interest in trying to keep and widen the development gap and in staving off the rise of emerging powers. As a result, wealthy countries maintain their leading position in the post-Kyoto climate regime building process. Developed countries initially communicated with and consulted big greenhouse gas emitters in a bid to establish a rational and efficient post-Kyoto system that would safeguard and coordinate balanced development between energy consumption, the Earth's climate, and economic growth. At the same time, developed countries tried to persuade developing countries to accept soft and hard environmental constraints. Second, due to the early-development advantage of developed countries and the late-development advantage of developing countries, any major energy innovation would bring about a new industrial revolution and the reallocation of global industry. Developed countries have even launched a climate or carbon tax to put limitations on the economic growth of the developing world, particularly China. Developing countries are gradually assuming the obligations of stabilizing GHG. But because they lack new energy sources and advanced technology, developing countries only become emerging markets for Western multinational companies, while developed countries are making full use of climate change opportunities to strengthen their technical and competitive edge. As a result, they continue to dominate the international system. Obviously, the situation is the same for the environmental trade regime, which would let developing countries, bear the programmed baseline costs, while developed countries bear incremental costs. Developed countries are doing that to increase the environmental constraint for developing countries and eventually restrict the development of developing countries with a harsh law.

China and African countries still stay at a stage of rapid industrialization, urbanization and globalization. These countries not only need to improve their economy development, but also need to keep away from the risk of globalization. Those security problems centered on the nexus of water, food and energy, brought

① Li Huailin ,” Nigeria supports Africa, G-77, China's position on climate change”, Xinhua News Agency， December12，2009.

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the developing countries with two aspects of challenges. Namely, on the one hand, the risk of connecting the human rights and nexus security is increasing and defending the sources and environment sovereignty is the common task of the developing countries. On the other hand, balancing the relationship of water, food and energy during the process of economic development and making smart choice. Consequently China and African countries needs to maintain the solidarity of the G-77 and China based on the coordination of the BASIC countries, forming a unified position of objecting the connection between the human rights and the water, food and energy issue.

China and African countries should continue to demand that developed countries provide non-commercial technology assistance to developing countries to help them cope with Energy-Water-Food nexus challenges and cultivate low-carbon emission economies. For China and African countries, global warming issues are also intimately linked to efforts to modernize the economy and the associated energy strategy necessary to bring about such modernization. Furthermore, Energy-Water-Food nexus challenges should be solved through international coordination, cooperation and mutual assistance in clean energy development. Developing countries are deeply dissatisfied with developed countries in this respect because the latter refuse to pay necessary regard to the constraints imposed by developing countries’ lack of development. Wealthy countries, for instance, place a low priority on technology transfers, and insist on the high price of intellectual property rights of these technologies. 3.3 China should help African Countries in green development China and Africa is faced with unprecedented competitive pressure and opportunities for development. The lack of natural resources and developed infrastructure has crippled the development of Africa, particularly in green and low carbon development. Climate change is both a challenge and an opportunity. Africa, without any historical burden, can accommodate all advanced low-carbon technologies. As long as Africa can persuade companies to invest here and focus on these issues, there will be much scope for development. As for emission reduction and sustainable development, it is necessary to promote the integration of overall plans and policies on the international level. China already has rich experience in the coordination of economic development and water, food and energy security. China shall take full advantage of the Rio+20 Summit to advocate its experience and achieve the goal of China-Africa cooperation on the area of water, food and energy. Development and climate change, two interrelated issues, should be

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integrated in China-African cooperation. In addition, China and African countries should also promote the transition of energy technologies and energy restructuring, and financial support in the common progress. In the near future, the priority area for China-Africa green cooperation could be the following areas: popularize advanced technologies and products for energy conservation; adjust the mix of energy consumption; intensify the capacity building for adapting to climate; accelerate the R&D and application of low-carbon technologies, and market building for carbon emissions trade.

First of all, China’s Africa policies are those that acknowledge that environment economy and empowerment are strongly interconnected. Today the livelihoods of 1.6 billion people across the world depend on forests, deforestation, climate change, ecosystem destruction, food and water crisis and financial situations are problems that call for courageous regulatory intervention. Rwanda for instance is one of the three countries in Central and Western Africa to achieve a major reversal in the trend of declining forest cover. China should change the policy orientation to Africa of over-emphasis on economic and resource cooperation but relative neglecting climate change and issues of the environment. Climate security issues should be incorporated into the China’s African strategy and long-term development framework, to promote the building of comprehensive cooperation between China and African countries.

Secondly, China should vigorously help African countries develop energy-saving and energy efficiency technologies, renewable energy and new energy technology, clean coal development and utilization of efficient technology, oil and gas resources and coal-bed methane exploration and development and utilization of clean and highly efficient technology, advanced nuclear energy technology, carbon capture and storage technology, bio-sequestration technologies and carbon sequestration projects in other technology, agriculture and land-use greenhouse gas emissions control technology, because the technology is the most important long-term strategy to deal with the climate change in Africa continent. For example, in August 2007, UNDP, SU/SSC, CICITE officially signed the project document for South-South Global Assets and Technology Exchange Program, which was implemented by SUAEE. One year later, Nov. 2008, SS-GATE was established as an independent entity in Shanghai, China. So far, there are over 1500 projects on the SS-GATE e-platform, among which 80.7% are from the developing countries and 19.3% from the developed countries. 70 successful deals have been made with a trading volume of US$ 297.69 million so far.

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Thirdly, Africa cannot effectively cope with today’s challenges without improving institutions and knowledge on climate change. That’s why it proposed to refine tools to work to improve the network of meteorological observation, among other solutions. China should help African countries strengthen the laws and regulations, policies, system and management mechanism to actively address climate change, and create a good institutional environment, policy environment and market environment for low-carbon development of enterprises. China top leaders always reiterate that China will continue to provide Africa with aid within its ability to meet the challenges of climate change, and China will provide more aid to Africa including in the sector of beating the challenges posed. 4.4 China-African cooperation for Post-Durban regime building Three important achievements have been achieved in Durban: Kyoto extension, Durban Platform to discuss post 2020 global emission scheme, and green climate fund. UN Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon argued it is an important advance in human battle against global warming. In Durban conference, more importantly, China demonstrates its global accountability and takes all-round diplomatic efforts to make a breakthrough at the Durban Climate Conference. Cancun Climate Conference 2010 resolved that any decisions on the future of the Kyoto Protocol will be deferred until conference in Durban. In Durban 2011, considering such a crisis and political dilemma as climate changes spread, discussed and negotiated all over the world, the solutions with all-round knowledge based efforts has been built partly by cooperation among and between China and African countries. China and the EU actually played as the leading role to deal with the deadlock and reach consensus on post 2012 climate change regime. China and African countries have determined that it is in their self interest to be part of the solution in Durban 2011. China together with Basic group and African countries have and will continue to offer comprehensive proposals to reduce their emissions, which included specific targets and timetables for Durban Platform on Enhanced Action.

China and African countries should be wary of a plot of different policy of "the Group of 77 and China" by developed countries. In addition, as emerging major developing countries have to face the pressure of the vast number of developing countries, especially the least developed countries and small island States. To alleviate the occurrence of the passive situation, China and African countries should strengthen communication and exchanges with these countries, which is an important strategic path for us. The "Kyoto Protocol" provides that the developing countries are without the responsibilities of emission reduction, which has laid a

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broad basis for developing countries and its cooperation. To this end, China and African countries should insist on the United Nations’ dominant position of addressing climate change. We should safeguard the "G 77 plus China” unity, and emphasize the complementary roles on the eight-nation summit and other multilateral consultations. China and African countries should also urge the implementation of the green funds for the vast number of developing countries to provide various forms of climate change adaptation and mitigation funding.

Climate change negotiations focus on emission reduction targets in real terms

than that of how developed countries to promote the technical and financial support for developing countries. China and African countries should advocate the establishment of new cooperation mechanisms. "Hand in hand to cope with global challenges" should be the important principle of collaboration between China and African countries. China and African countries should actively plan for a "one voice" to jointly deal with challenges. China and African countries should play a leading role in building their own course of sustainable development in the above-mentioned problems, actively promote the technology and capital flows to African countries, and encourage all of African countries to embark on low-carbon economy and sustainable development.

Conclusion In conclusion, the results are clear: the nexus security of water-food-energy will transcend general global governance and implies complicated conflicts of politics and ideology. Because of climate change, water plays a central role in the nexus of green development. The core issue of nexus security lies in the interaction of water, food and security. Due to the nexus of the three sectors, it is hardly possible to resolve the problem by single-sector governance or by one country alone. From the perspective of resource interdependence, nexus security provides a new explanation to global resource security, competition, cooperation and conflict, which help advances water-energy-food research from technological level to diplomatic strategy level and offers new instrument for global issues. Nexus security emphasizes that the particular nexus of water-food-energy has an influence on global strategy dynamics. The shortage of water is the major trigger of conflict. Because half of global population relies on food from Americas and Australia, the drought in Australia and the over-exploitation of water and biofuel in the US increase tension among water, energy and food. Climate change plays a central role in the nexus of green development. The core issue of nexus security lies in the

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interaction of water, food and security under global climate change. Due to the nexus of the three sectors, it is hardly possible to resolve the problem by single-sector governance or by one country alone; international cooperation against climate change should be put in the first priority, at most part, we should attach great importance to China-Africa green relations.

“The difficulty lies, not in the new ideas, but in escaping from the old ones”. Whatever the outcomes and motivations, in order to deal with energy-water-food nexus, China and African countries should understand it is in their economic and national interest to stop waiting and move ahead for green and low carbon development. They are putting concrete proposals for mitigation on the table in the international negotiations, taking a constructive approach to energy-water-food with green development issues in bilateral and multilateral venues, and taking unilateral action to reduce greenhouse gas emissions at home. Despite bearing relatively little responsibility for the current impacts of climate change, emerging economies have determined that it is in their self interest to be part of the solution. China and African countries can also work with other developing countries to offer comprehensive proposals to green their development, which included specific targets and timetables in Rio+20 this June. Together with other recently-announced plans, these proposals marked a sea change in the international debate, breaking the log-jam of the previous decade for the lag-behind of finance assistance and technology transfer from developed countries.

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The Sustainable Development of Sino-African Cooperation: Actors, Gaps and Reforms

ZHU Ming∗

The relations between Africa and China have experienced an extremely fast-growing period since the beginning of this century, and its speed is quite rare in history. As for the unique close political ties, it has been a 22 years long tradition by 2012 that Chinese Foreign Minister always makes his first official visits to Africa at the beginning of each year.① What’s more, the booming economic ties are even labeled by some observers as “Africa’s Silk Road”.② Already Africa's single biggest trading partner, China is set to become the continent's largest export destination in 2012 according to South Africa-based Standard Bank.③

What’s more, both countries proclaimed “the establishment of a new type of strategic partnership between China and Africa featuring political equality and mutual trust, economic win-win cooperation and cultural exchanges” at the Summit of the Forum on China-Africa Cooperation in 2006.④ The FOCAC (the Forum on China-Africa Cooperation) is held every three years since it was founded in 2000. Outside praises and criticisms of the FOCAC are intertwined. At every summit, Beijing issued its new Africa policy principles and a 3-year Action Plan in details. Being a multilateral policy platform, FOCAC together with Beijing’s existing bilateral relations with African nations, enrich Beijing’s Africa policy instruments and play a key coordinating role in China’s grand Africa policy.

To start this analysis, the present author believes that two issues are essential to be observed here. The first is the needs and challenges of Africa. It is very often

∗ Zhu Ming is Research Fellow at Shanghai Institutes for International Studies and Ph.D Candidate of Shanghai Normal Universtity. ① China Business News, 6 January 2012, p.A6. ② Harry G. Broadman, Africa’s Silk Road：China and India’s New Economic Frontier, Washington, D.C.：World Bank, 2006. ③ Lanre Akinola,“China to Become Africa's Biggest Export Market”，This is Africa，22 March 2012. ④ Declaration of the Beijing Summit Of the Forum on China-Africa Cooperation, November 2006, http://www.focac.org/eng/ltda/dscbzjhy/DOC32009/t606841.htm.

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mentioned that China and Africa always face same or similar challenges, which have been the solid basis of mutual cooperation. The second is to what extent China and Africa can help each other under the framework of FOCAC. Through the analysis, the author points out the issue of Capacity Gap produced by insufficient actors.

The Rising Needs and Challenges of Africa According to the 2011 Revision of the World Urbanization Prospects, Africa’s urban population will soar from today’s 414 million to over 1.2 billion and in Asia the dramatic increase will be from 1.9 billion to 3.3 billion over the next four decades. India, China, Nigeria, the United States and Indonesia are estimated to have the largest increase in urban population, the UN report says. The estimated increase in urban population of Nigeria between 2012 and 2050 will be higher than that of the past 40 years.① And Over the past decade six of the world’s ten fastest-growing countries are African. In eight of the past ten years, Africa has grown faster than East Asia, including Japan. Even allowing for the knock-on effect of the northern hemisphere’s slowdown, the IMF expects Africa to grow by 6% in 2011 and nearly 6% in 2012, about the same as Asia. ②

Graph 1: Growth rates of urban agglomerations, 2011-2025

Source：United Nations, Department of Economic and Social Affairs, Population Division: World

① United Nations, Department of Economic and Social Affairs, Population Division: World Urbanization Prospects, the 2011 Revision. New York 2011. ② “Africa Rising”, The Economist，December 3– 9, 2011, p.15.

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Urbanization Prospects, the 2011 Revision. New York 2012.

Meanwhile, the tough challenges facing Africa are still there. The past East Africa and the ongoing Sahel drought have shown how weak and un-sustainable of these affected African states are when they face natural disasters. The aid system of the international community is also flawed in coping with such a crisis in time.①

Besides food security, climate change, regional conflicts and many other challenges, all these traditional and non-traditional threats demand the solid efforts and measures of Africa and other nations including China. Due to the long history of good relations with China, Africa and China always work hand in hand to handle challenges. In 2008, when China suffered from the devastating earthquake in Sichuan province, many African countries lent a hand to China within their capacities. Such kind of mutual-assistance partnership is further enforced against the background of China’s fast developments.

An evaluation report about FOCAC is published by the Shanghai Institutes for International Studies (SIIS) in 2008, which timely highlighted the roles of public opinion and its future trend, arguing that the successes of the Beijing Olympics and Beijing Para-Olympics have boosted China’s position in international politics in three aspects. The developing countries cherish a greater ‘great power expectation’ over China. The developed countries have increased ‘the great power demand’ over China as well. Notwithstanding, the ‘great power responsibility’ is growing even within China at elite and popular level per se. The 2010 Shanghai World Expo will strengthen and consolidate China’s international position further. The international community will accept the fact of a rising China to a larger extent. Thereby, the African countries would have higher expectations on China-Africa relations. The expectations will be reinforced once the commitments made at Beijing FOCAC Summit are delivered in time, or even ahead of time and over-fulfilled. ②

① More analysis are via ZHU Ming, “The Political Obstacles behind the East Africa Famine”, China Social Sciences Today, 4 August 2011, p.13.；ZHU Ming, “The ‘Governance Deficit’ of the East Africa famine”, Wenhui Daily, 19 August 2011, p.7. ② LI Weijian, ZHANG zhongxiang, ZHANG Chun, ZHU Ming, Beijing Summit & the Third Ministerial Conference of the Forum on China-Africa Cooperation—Appraisal and Prospects Number 2, Report of SIIS Project (Shanghai: SIIS, December 2008)，pp.29-30.

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China’s Challenges: Capacity Gap This prediction has come true after 4 years, not to mention that the ongoing global financial crisis has de facto upgraded Beijing’s global position and African countries’ expectation towards China. China has become the No.2 economic power in the world in terms of GDP. “Made in China” is everywhere in the world. The number of Chinese businessmen, companies in Africa is rising. But more literatures focus on the political, economic sides of China-Africa relation, and are always targeted on government side, lobbying or asking them to do more and better. In other words, state as traditional actor has got quite a lot of outside attention, while the weakness of China’s non-state actors is largely neglected.

Frankly speaking, the non-state actors of Africa and China are still not strong enough to carry out effective mutual cooperation yet. It is still a not so short road to go. Meanwhile, the diversification of international and domestic actors and their related interests in Africa will form a certain level of pressure on the development of the Forum. Internationally, various countries are paying more and more attention to Africa. Not only traditional powers and newly rising powers have either strengthened or created platforms dealing with their relations with Africa, but also international organizations are increasingly taking notice of Africa. Worthy of greater concern is the increased interest of non-government actors like NGOs and transnational corporations. They usually focus on particular problems and have significant potential to initiate new international agendas. Thus, they can put more pressure on the behaviors of national actors and international organizations.①

But up to now, Beijing is still relatively weak in those sectors, despite the number of domestic non-state actors is booming. For instance, as for the number of think tanks, China is said to be No.1 in the world, but the number of top global ones is quite small. That is to say, “Capacity Gap” does exist. In the author's opinion, the Gaps analyzed here can be divided into three categories. a) NGOs From 19 to 20 July 2012, the Ministers of Foreign Affairs and Ministers in charge of economic cooperation of the People's Republic of China and 50 African countries ① LI Weijian, ZHANG Zhongxiang, ZHANG Chun, ZHU Ming, “Toward a New Decade: Research on the Sustainable Development of FOCAC”, West Asia and Africa, Issue 9, 2010, pp.5-10.

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and the Chairperson of the African Union (AU) Commission, met in Beijing for the Fifth Ministerial Conference of the Forum on China-Africa Cooperation (FOCAC). In order to implement the outcomes of the conference and chart the future course of China-Africa cooperation in all fields in the next three years, the two sides jointly formulated and adopted with consensus this Action Plan. In terms of people-to-people exchanges, the Plan says that:

“The two sides noted the holding of the first and second China-Africa People's Forum and the important declarations issued and believed that the forum serves as an important platform for comprehensive exchanges and practical cooperation between people's organizations of China and Africa. The two sides agreed to institutionalize the forum to give fresh impetus to the China-Africa traditional friendship.” ①

It is pointed out that as for the global influences of NGOs, “the Africans were watching, the Asians listening, the Latin Americans talking while the North Americans and Europeans were doing business.” ② By 2011, China has 462 thousand officially recognized NGOs. But almost all of them have little experience or history in effective international cooperation with their foreign counterparts. ③

That is no strange that although Beijing has sent one high-level NGO delegation to Nairobi in 2011 to host the first China-Africa People’s Forum，the conference is successful in having had a good beginning but too early to have a deeper enough cooperation yet. During that conference, African NGOs asked to get direct financial support from their Chinese counterparts, but Chinese NGOs also faced their own budget limits, and it was hard to meet the African demands at once.④ Meanwhile, the Western NGOs have a longer and deeper cooperation with their African counterparts. African NGOs are relatively more likely to get fiscal support from Europe or America. For instance, the Netherlands, a medium-sized European state,

① The Fifth Ministerial Conference of the Forum on China-Africa Cooperation Beijing Action Plan (2013-2015), http://www.focac.org/eng/ltda/dwjbzjjhys/hywj/t954620.htm ② Ann Marie Clark, Elisabeth Jay Friedman and Kathryn Hochstetler,“The Sovereign Limits of Global Civil Society: A Comparison of NGO Participation in UN World Conferences on the Environment, Human Rights and Women”in Rorden Wilkinson ed.，The Global Governance Reader, London and New York：Routledge, 2005, p.299. ③ Ministry of Civil Affairs of the People's Republic of China, Statistical Communiqué, 21 June 2012, http://www.mca.gov.cn/article/zwgk/mzyw/201206/20120600324725.shtml. ④ International Herald Leader (China), September 2011, p.7.

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has invested 40 million euros on DRC NGOs.① Both China and African should not only to promote direct exchanges between NGOs, relevant resources are also needed to facilitate such kind of grass-roots exchange process. b) Media Traditionally, the mark of a great power was its ability to prevail in war. But in an information age, success depends not just on whose army wins but also on whose story wins.② Although Beijing has invested huge resources on its public diplomacy and soft power section in order to improve its global image, the mainstream global media is still located in London, Paris, New York, not in Beijing or Shanghai. That is to say, the western media enjoys the un-challenged privilege to judge China – Africa relations from their perspectives and interests. Now fruitful cooperation between Beijing and Africa has been the HIGHLIHGT to each side, but it has also been the HOTSPOT of criticisms of contemporary Sino-African ties. ③ “This world is far from a balanced one. Some have megaphones, some only small microphones and some none.” Chinese Foreign Minister Yang Jiechi says.④

The fast-growing Sino-African relationship has however not been without controversy, and China regularly finds itself the subject of allegations that it undermines human rights and governance in its dealings with African governments. ⑤ Mr. Lu Shaye, Director-General of Department of African Affairs of China's Ministry of Foreign Affairs points out that around 80% of international news resources is from the western media, which are naturally with some prejudices. ⑥

① Data is via Uitgaven NGO's werkzaam op Internationale Samenwerking in 2009 in Dem. Rep. of the Congo（accessed on 9 May 2011）. ② Joseph S. Nye Jr.，“Power Shifts”，Time，9 May 2011，p.23. ③ ZHU Ming, “A brief Analysis of ‘Chinese Aid Threat’– Challenges and Pressures facing China’s Diplomacy ”, in Shanghai Social Science Association（SSSA）ed., China’s Future: Questions and Challenges (Shanghai People Press, 2008), pp.75-87.； ZHU Ming, “The Perceptions of African scholars on China’s soft power in Africa and the FOCAC ”, Wenhui Daily, 4 December 2011, p.3. ④ Foreign Minister Yang Jiechi Answers Questions from Domestic and Overseas Journalists on China's Foreign Policy and External Relations （7th March 2012）. ⑤ Lanre Akinola,“China to Become Africa's Biggest Export Market”，This is Africa，22 March 2012. ⑥ The speech delivered by Mr. Lu Shaye, Director-General of Department of African Aff-airs of China's Ministry of Foreign Affairs, 9 May 2012, http://www.focac.org/chn/xsjl/zflhyjjljh/t930097.htm.

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It is pointed out that China has ventured into Africa as a friend. This has forced the West, aware of its crimes, to sit up because it knows that it could now "lose the continent". Demonizing China is now the main goal of Western propaganda. The West is promoting its own politico-economic system as the only one possible in the world. ① C) China’s construction companies in Africa A bit different from the above two sectors, China is good at infrastructure. In the past, the Tanzania – Zambia railway served as the symbol of China-Africa friendship. Last year, the new AU headquarter building had become a new symbol.

Graph 2：Sectoral distribution of concessional Loans from China (By the end of 2009)

Source and Note： （1）White paper: China's foreign aid (April 2011). （2）The Chinese data here is by the end of 2009, according to a white paper on China's foreign

aid issued by China's Information Office of the State Council on April 21, 2011.

Up to now, the Chinese assistance to Africa mainly flows to the “hardware” (infrastructure etc) section, which means that the Chinese enterprises have been the main actor of the Chinese assistance to Africa. China has also begun making its mark as an emerging donor. In January a new $200m African Union headquarters was commissioned in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. Funded entirely by China, the opening ceremony was attended by Jia Qinling, Chairman of CPPCC, who told

① Andre Vltchek，“When will West ever Learn History Lesson”，China Daily，26 October 2011，p.9.

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those in attendance that "the towering complex speaks volumes about our friendship to the African people, and testifies to our strong resolve to support African development."①

During the Chairman Mao era (1949-1976), all Chinese enterprises did not need

to worry about economic issue, the whole Chinese economic system then was planned economy. Such a non-benefit driven feature of Chinese enterprises has matched quite well with the high politics profile of Chinese ODA to Africa. But since the 1980s, due to the reform and opening-up policy, more and more Chinese enterprises have transformed to be more and more independent economic units in market economy circumstance. That is to say, the economic face is rising while the political face is declining.

Graph 3: Per Capita Net Income of Rural Households and

the Real Growth Rates, 2006-2011

Source：National Bureau of Statistics of China, Statistical Communiqué of the People's Republic of China on the 2011 National Economic and Social Development, February 22, 2012.

According to one JETRO (Japan External Trade Organization)’s comparative

research, Japanese construction companies have suffered from its high-cost

① Lanre Akinola, “China to Become Africa's Biggest Export Market”，This is Africa，22 March 2012.

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disadvantage compared to Chinese ones. The annual salary of Chinese engineer is just 14% of a Japanese engineer. ① But such a kind of low cost advantage of China is gone now. Due to the fast economic growth of China, the domestic income level is also rising fast. In 2011, the annual per capita net income of rural households was 6,977 yuan, up by 17.9 percent, or a real increase of 11.4 percent over the previous year when the factors of price increase were deducted. ② And China’s underdeveloped inland areas have also been on the fast track, which have offered more jobs to young peasant workers. All these make the charming of overseas work are not so in the interests of Chinese people, especially for them to work in a remote and risky continent like Africa.

Policy Recommendations Regarding the above mentioned flaws, lessons and progress that China has made in the past decades, several practical reforms could be enacted in the following areas. a) Think for Africa and BEYOND Africa (From ‘A’ to ‘A’) Despite the high speed, the history of such a kind of all-dimensioned cooperation beginning from the 2000 FOCAC is relatively short. In order to outline a better future, we need to draw lessons and experience not only from the history of China-Africa relations, but also from other researches beyond China-Africa relations. For example, China has promised to play more positively in promoting the regional integration process of Africa. China could borrow lessons from China’s regional cooperation with its neighboring Asian countries. It is because such a kind of China’ s Asian regional cooperation is more and deeper than China’s regional cooperation with Africa. The reasons behind it need not to be emphasized.

China, facing the positive problem of being a capital surplus economy, is diverting more funds to assist the development of Asian infrastructure, and is involved in high-level talks with several countries to provide funds and loans for high-speed rails and related projects across the region. China and Thailand are set to agree on a plan to build high-speed rail lines that will pass from Southern China through Laos to Thailand, and then to the border of Malaysia. In 2010, the Thai Parliament approved the deal in a project likely to cost some US$27 billion. But ① Nihon Keizai Shimbun , 5 April 2012, p.4. ② National Bureau of Statistics of China, Statistical Communiqué of the People's Republic of China on the 2011 National Economic and Social Development, February 22, 2012.

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some ASEAN countries are afraid that such projects might de facto divide ASEAN into two blocs, which are pro-Beijing ASEAN land bloc (including Laos, Thailand, etc.) and pro-Washington ASEAN sea bloc (including Singapore, Philippines, etc.). The possible internal split would surely be bad to the integration process of ASEAN in their eyes.①

Such a kind of un-intended double-edge effect of China’s foreign policy is emerging not only in Asia, but also in Africa. Some Africans are worried that Beijing’s favorable policies towards LDCs of Africa may enable them to depend more on Beijing instead of on cooperating with their neighbors to promote Africa’s regional integration. ② That is to say, due to the larger scale and scope of China-Africa cooperation, the relevant research needs to be more comprehensive, multi-dimensional, far-sighted. Only after that, both Africa and China would be able to better manage these never-met-before circumstances. b) Internal reforms of both sides are quite essential. A nation’s policy is based on its material capacity or hard power. But it is not a spontaneous process. Without the relevant domestic policy consensus or willingness, any good ideas would be still on paper instead of actions. Not to mention that, China’s own capabilities are still limited, that’s why Beijing still prefers to keep low profiles facing higher external demands including offering more aid abroad. Facing this financial crisis, more and more developed and developing countries are arguing via different channels that Beijing is able and should do more to fight against this crisis hand in hand with the international community. But Beijing still keeps a low profile and its reply is a bit conservative. ③ Before G20’s London Summit, Beijing repeatedly insists that what China should and could do first is to keep our house in order. ④

Just as what the author has analyzed above, there are quite a lot of obstacles at present blocking Chinese and Africans to engage each other in a more relaxed way.

① More relevant academic papers are available via MA Ying, “For Mutual Communication of Infrastructure and Cooperation between China and Southeast Asia — Commemorating the 20th Anniversary of China-ASEAN Dialogue Partnership”，Global Review，March/April 2011.；ZHOU Shixin, “The Cooperation of China and ASEAM in the Grand Mekong River Region”, Around Southeast Asia, Vol. 1, 2011。 ② Interview with Zimbabwean scholars in Harare, Janruary 2011. ③ ZHU Ming, “Politique Africaine de la Chine: Perspectives et Devenir Facteurs inédits et Incidences”，Les Temps Modernes，No.657, janvier-mars 2010，pp.203-204. ④ People Daily of China, April 1, 2009，p.3.

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Some Chinese businessmen in Africa always complain about the low efficiency of their African counterparts and governments. Africa needs to do something to facilitate inward investments (not only towards Chinese FDI surely). Some regulations of Beijing are also needed to be upgraded, such as the aid policy, immigration policy.

These kinds of reforms are mainly not in the charge of Foreign Ministry. But they have had negative impact on our diplomatic ties. The author believes that top-down reform approaches are needed to push such reforms step by step. c) TWO Scientific Approaches The mutual development cooperation of China and Africa in the field of natural science (in the form of R&D) would help Africa with the production or even export of more technology-intensive products (“Made in Africa”). Or Africa would continue to worry or even complain about just being the resource supplier to China. For example, "Africa must not jump blindly from one type of neo-colonialism into Chinese-style neo-colonialism," cautioned Rene N'Guetta Kouassi, the head of the African Union's economic affairs department. ①

The intellectual support in the field of social sciences from both Africa and China is quite essential to our policymakers, businessmen, etc.. David M. Lampton，a leading American scholar on Chinese studies argues that Chinese power has three faces. They are might, money and minds.② Looking back, we find fruitful examples indicating how important intellectual contributions could be, e.g. Adam Smith to the rise of Great Britain, Karl Marx to the founding of the Soviet Union. According to one recent worldwide research on think tanks, most top think tanks are located in developed countries and best ones are almost all in western countries. For instance, among the top thirty international development think tanks, all the top twenty-two are either from North America (America and Canada) or Europe (France, UK etc). Only the 23rd one is from China.③ The existing underdevelopment situation of the academies of Africa and China are not ideal yet, unable to meet the needs from ① “Africa Fears Neo-colonialism with China's Foray: Analysts”, AFP (Addis Ababa), 30 Sept 2009. ② David M. Lampton，Three Faces of Chinese Power: Might, Money and Minds, University of California Press, 2008. ③ James G. McGann, The Global GO-TO THINK TANKS REPORT 2011 - The Leading Public Policy Research Organizations In The World, Philadelphia, PA：University of Pennsylvania，19 January 2012.

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governments, companies, etc..

Conclusion: Win-Win or Weak-Weak Cooperation? Jean Pierre Onvehoun Ezin is the African Union’s (AU) Commissioner for Human Resources, Science and Technology, one of the 10 Commissioners representing the 53 AU member states. Ezin once said that“Europe is the partner we know best and who knows us best, but we want a more effective cooperation.” ① What he said is mostly true. One reason is that both China and Africa are still weak in terms of non-state actors, not to mention, very frequent and fruitful partnership and cooperation pushed by non-state actors. In fact, in today’s globalized world, bilateral relation is pushed not only by governments, but also by foundations, transnational companies (TNCs), think tanks, etc..

It has been a consensus that both China and Africa are trying to establish a new type of China-Africa Strategic Partnership. One core feature is a win-win cooperation. For instance, in Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao's speech at 4th Ministerial Conference of Forum on China-Africa Cooperation, “win-win progress” and “win-win cooperation” are mentioned more than once.② But we also have to admit that in quite a lot of areas, the actors of Africa and China are weak, that is say, the relevant cooperation has to be taken on the basis of weak-weak partnership. Such a condition surely produces the question of in-sufficient dynamic and un-sustainable development.

In conclusion, on the road to sustainable development of China-Africa relations, both sides are facing the challenge of capacity gap. Prof. David Shambaugh, who is Professor at the George Washington University and is recognized internationally as an authority on contemporary Chinese affairs, points out that despite fast growing, China’s influence is globally broad but not deep enough yet.③ Both Africa and China need to do a lot more to cultivate more powerful non-state actors to increase the dynamics of our cooperation. ① Debra Percival，“We Must Be in the Driving Seat of the Eight AU-EU Partnerships”，The Courier，Issue No. XIX , September/October 2010, pp.4-5. ② The speech is via “Building the New Type of China-Africa Strategic Partnership：Full text of Chinese premier's speech at 4th Ministerial Conference of Forum on China-Africa Cooperation”(November 8 ,2009), http://www.focac.org/eng/ltda/dsjbzjhy/zyjh/t625623.htm. ③ On 19th September 2011, Prof. David Shambaugh’s speech titled "China and Global Governance: Past & Future" in the Shanghai Institutes for International Studies.