China Steps Up Its Argument Over Darfur

BEIJING, March 7 -- Liu Guijin, China's special envoy for Sudan, was fielding yet another question Friday on Darfur and the Olympics. Politics have no place in the Olympics, he told reporters, and it violates the Olympic spirit to claim that China has a duty to do more in the embattled western Sudanese region because Beijing is hosting the 2008 Games.

But this time, Liu had a new argument in his briefcase: President Bush agrees with China on this point. So does British Prime Minister Gordon Brown, he said, not to mention French President Nicolas Sarkozy.

Those world leaders have announced their willingness to attend a gala opening ceremony Aug. 8, he noted. If people of that caliber think Darfur is no reason to take the joy out of the Beijing Olympics, he suggested, then the human rights activists and Darfur campaigners must be out of line.

"More and more spokesmen and public figures have decided that politicization of the Olympic Games is not compatible with the Olympic spirit and that the Darfur question has no connection to the Olympic Games," he said.

Liu's comments, at a Foreign Ministry briefing, marked the latest salvo in a belated but increasingly active public diplomacy campaign by the Chinese government. In news conferences, statements and widely publicized actions, it has begun to duel openly with U.S. and European activists who assert that hosting the Games bestows on China a responsibility to improve its human rights record and work more forcefully to end the humanitarian crisis in Darfur.

"Their attitude will go nowhere," Liu said.