Usually a supporter of territorial integrity, Beijing is making plans to adapt to the prospect of an oil-rich and independent Southern Sudan
Sudan is set to split into two next year, and China – the Khartoum regime’s most important international backer – is stuck in the middle. Under the 2005 peace deal between the National Congress Party (NCP) of President Omer Hassan Ahmed el Beshir and the Sudan People’s Liberation Movement (SPLM), the Southern Sudanese people are likely to vote massively for secession in the referendum due on 9 January. The secession would peel off the bottom third of Africa’s largest country. It would also mean the transfer of sovereign control of most of Sudan’s known oil fields to the new government in the South....
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