China Apparently Reversing Course On Pirates, Darfur

By John E. Carey
June 15, 2007

In the last 24 hours China has apparently changed policy on two highly significant issues in order to pave the way toward a smooth Summer Olympics in Beijing in 2008.

Under intense pressure from the international community, including face to face discussions between President Hu Jintao of China and the Prime Ministers of Canada and Sweden, China now says it will strike a deal to allow a team of international peacekeepers into Darfur to stop what the international community has called genocide.

China also has told the United States it will now take drastic measures to end the counterfeiting, piracy and patent and trademark violations that have become a major obstacle to good relations and an improved business climate. These violators of Intellectual Property Rights (IPRs) in China cost U.S. artists and businesses billions of dollars owed to patent and trademark IPRs.

China accounted for about 80 percent of the 14,775 shipments of counterfeit goods seized at U.S. ports last year, said W. Ralph Basham, commissioner of U.S. Customs and Border Protection.

China signed a memorandum of cooperation allowing U.S. Customs to provide China with information on the source of seized goods. China will then pursue the source of these pirated good to arrest and prosecution.

“We’ve got to start dealing with the source of the problem. We can’t expect to rely upon interdiction to be our tool in order to stop these products,” Basham said.

New Deal On Darfur

A Sudanese diplomat in Ethiopia confirmed on that China and President General Omar Bashir of Sudan have agreed to allow a joint African Union- United Nations peacekeeping force to enter and secure the country’s troubled Darfur region.

Omar Hasan Ahmad al-Bashir

Sudan has accepted the mission after receiving assurances that the force would be a “hybrid” AU-U.N. force of 17,000 to 19,000 troops.

The agreement is not open ended and Sudan will remain in control of its borders.

“China welcomes the deployment of a hybrid AU-UN force in Darfur and the joint statement,” Foreign Ministry spokesman Qin Gang said in a statement posted on the ministry’s Web site.