China Bet On The Wrong Side In Libya

Sep 5, 2011 by

In true Chinese fashinon the equally repressive country bet on Libya’s violent military leader Muammar Gaddafi to be victorious in his countries revolution. Now China is taking heat from Libya’s new rebel leaders who discovered that Chinese weapons companies were trying to broker deals to sell Gaddafi and his military weapons despite the fact that a UN resolution has banned arms deals with Libya. The Chinese government denies setting up the meetings but in an usually bold statement China’s Foreign Ministry confirmed reporting by The Globe and Mail that Col. Gadhafi’s envoys travelled to Beijing in mid-July and held meetings with state-controlled arms makers.

China was trying to sell a massive quantity of arms and munitions to the still largely in control Gaddafi regime but they didn’t take into account the will of the Libyan people. This isn’t surprising just look at China’s track record on human rights. Those weapons would have certainly been used against the Libyan people but why would China want to sell Gaddafi weapons other than to make a quick buck they don’t need? Oil. Because of the revolution China had to shut down its oil production within Libya and since China has never backed the rebels they knew the new leaders might not look be so eager to sell natural resources to them.

The Chinese ministry insisted that the talks did not result in any signed deals or weapons deliveries. A Foreign Ministry spokeswoman even suggested that Col. Gadhafi’s men had operated clandestinely inside China, somehow arranging to meet representatives from three Chinese weapons manufacturers without official permission. That all sounds rather shady to me and I don’t think it will fly with the rebels either.

According to the Globe and Mail nothing in the four page Libyan government letter nothing even hinted at the fact that the Chinese government couldn’t know or wasn’t already aware. 

Col. Gadhafi’s envoys arrived in Beijing on a regular Lufthansa flight that landed July 16; they were met by a Libyan military liaison officer – a senior general – who made reservations for the group at a Beijing hotel. Although the documents emphasize that the Chinese firms asked for confidentiality, there was no suggestion of keeping secrets from the Chinese government.

According to the papers a staggering $200 million worth of weapons and munitions was on the table but it is unclear if the deal came to fruition. The leaders in Tripoli began circulating the documents and started demanding accountability for the breach in the arms embargo.

“It’s a Chinese state-controlled company, and they are saying they didn’t know about it?” said Mohammed Sayeh, a member of the National Transitional Council. “This is amazing, really.”

China did agree to UN Resolution 1970 in order to protect the killing of civilians and continue to maintain that they have respected it. A spokesmen for the rebels has hinted that evidence of violations of the embargo by China exists and that could be the basis of legal action against China. Recently rebel forces captured arms caches, bases and homes of Gaddafi so it is likely that more evidence will arise if such actions took place. This enables the NATO alliance who is maintaining the embargo to take action at any potential UN vote on sanctions against China which even though highly unlikely fair is fair.

Source: The Globe and Mail

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