The recent international uproar over China's treatment of Tibet has drawn attention to the domestic human-rights record of this year's Olympic host country. Receiving less attention are China's policies in Africa.
As a Sudanese person from the Darfur region, a survivor of a genocide orchestrated by my own government, I have experienced first-hand the deadly effects of China's foreign policy.
The country has consistently sabotaged attempts by other states to curb the violence and human-rights abuse in Sudan.
Although the Sudanese Government is ultimately responsible for the tragedy in Darfur, there is ample evidence that China's actions have contributed significantly to the ongoing conflict and suffering.
The conflict is now in its fifth year, yet the United Nations African Union Mission in Darfur has still not been equipped with sufficient resources to fulfil its mandate to protect those most vulnerable.
According to the latest UN report, over 300,000 people have been killed and three million displaced, most now cramped in squalid camps along the volatile Chad/Sudan border.
Between 2002 and 2005, the most disastrous years of the genocide, China transferred $US45 million ($A48 million) worth of weapons and ammunition to the Sudanese Government.
Since 2005, China has provided 90 per cent of all small arms in Sudan, many of which are found in the hands of government troops as well as the murderous Janjaweed militia.
On top of the arms trade, China is by far the largest consumer of Sudanese oil and its national oil company, China National Petroleum Corporation, has invested tens of millions of dollars in the country. As a consequence, Sudan has had the means to expand its military at an alarming rate. In 2002, for example, military spending accounted for 38.8 per cent of all Sudanese Government oil revenue. Purchases by the Sudanese military this same year included the expansion of their attack helicopter fleet from six to 22.
China claims that this is a domestic issue for Sudan, and that any action would violate China's principle of non-interference with its African trading partners. However, the notion that China has not interfered in the Darfur conflict is laughable. No country has done more than China to support the violent regime in Sudan and insulate it from economic pressure and human-rights accountability.
China has literally made a killing from the trade in weapons and oil with Sudan. While clearly not the only country with economic or political interests in Sudan, China's complicity in the human tragedy is the most blatant and consistent of all.
It is distressing that the Olympic spirit is being championed by a country whose foreign policy demonstrates a clear disconnect with the ideals of peace, humanity and global harmony associated with the Games.
And yet the Beijing Olympics offer a remarkable opportunity to place the spotlight on the atrocities taking place in Darfur and, by doing so, offer support to the movement for change.
My request is not that we isolate China or boycott the Games, but that we use our diplomatic and commercial ties to convince China to reform its approach to human rights a reform which is in the interests of Darfur, the West, and China and in accord with the spirit of the Olympic Games.
Alpha Lisimba is vice-president of the Darfur Australia Network.
