Following an official visit to a refugee camp in Darfur, the Chinese government has announced that it has asked the Sudanese government to take more action to improve security in the war-torn region:
Sudan’s key ally China has urged it to show greater flexibility in discussions over its war-torn Darfur region.
Assistant Foreign Minister Zhai Jun told President Omar al-Bashir that he needed to do more to improve security, China’s state media reports. [Full text]
– See also a Shanghai Daily story and a post from Richard Spencer’s blog, which says:
…China is criticised for lending its support to the Sudanese government, as I pointed out. The state media presented a brief report of what the assistant foreign minister, Zhai Juan, found, as represented here by People’s Daily (all reports on such occasions tend to be identical, dictated via the propaganda department).
As you will see, it says Mr Zhai was told that in the first refugee camp he visited, officials told him conditions were “stable and natural”; in South Darfur, his second port of call, the governor told him the situation was “stable and improving due to the efforts exerted by the Sudanese government and the African Union”.
Overall, the Sudanese government said the situation in Darfur was “stable and quiet”.
I sense that the co-operation between China and Sudan, as described last week, now reaches into their reporting of political affairs: for Chinese officials, as all those who follow China know, “stable” is the most complimentary epithet that can possibly be applied to anything, a double-syllable answer to everything, including calls for democracy. [Full text]
