China & the Contradictions of ‘Non-interference’ in Sudan

Abstract

The core Chinese foreign policy principle of non-interference has recently come under increasing and more visible strain in China's relations with Sudan. Noninterference has been central to Beijing's relations with different governments in Khartoum since 1959. From the mid-1990s, however, the Chinese role in Sudan has become more embedded and consequential. Today China faces the challenge of accommodating its established policy of non-interference with the more substantive and growing complexity of Chinese involvement developed over the past decade in Sudan, amidst ongoing conflict in western Darfur and changing politics after the North-South peace agreement of January 2005.