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US envoy says Beijing soft on Sudan

The US special envoy to Sudan criticized Beijing on Thursday for not putting economic pressure on Sudan over Darfur and said he was disappointed by the Chinese leader's last visit to Khartoum.

Envoy Andrew Natsios urged China to join the US and others and use diplomatic and economic pressure to push Sudan's government to accept an international force in its Darfur region and stop what the US says is genocide.

"China's substantial economic investment in Sudan gives it considerable potential leverage and we have made clear to Beijing that the international community will expect China to be part of the solution," Natsios said in testimony to the House of Representatives Committee on Foreign Affairs.

During a visit to Sudan last week, Chinese President Hu Jintao (胡錦濤) signed several economic deals with Sudan, including an interest-free loan of 100 million yuan (approximately US$13 million) for Sudan to build a new presidential palace. He also wrote off up to US$70 million in Sudanese debts.

"I was a little disappointed with what happened recently in terms of the visit. I have to be very candid, I was hoping for a little bit more diplomatic pressure from the Chinese," Natsios said.

Republican Representative Christopher Smith said China was "enabler-in-chief" when it came to atrocities in Darfur, where more than 200,000 people have died in the past four years and more than 2.5 million have been displaced from their homes.

"I doubt that Sudan's leaders lost much sleep after their meeting with the Chinese president. Perhaps that night they dreamed of building the new railway line straight to Darfur to hasten the genocide," said Democratic Representative Tom Lantos, a survivor of the Holocaust.

Natsios, who visited China last month to press the US view on Darfur, said he believed Beijing understood it was in their interests to resolve the deteriorating situation there.

Hu was in Maputo on Thursday on the last major stop of his African tour. He announced a debt waiver, cash grants, increased market access and "pragmatic cooperation" with war-ravaged Mozambique.

Hu signed a slew of cooperation agreements and announced that China was waiving Mozambique's bilateral debt, after talks with his Mozambican counterpart Armando Guebuza.
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