An influential Sudanese priest has accused China of pursuing a damaging policy of economic gain in Sudan, at the expense of optimum quality of life in the large central African country.
“China is looking only for minerals, they are looking for economic benefit. That is all”, Archbishop Daniel Deng, leader of the Episcopal Church of the Sudan said during a visit to Lambeth Palace in London in mid January 2010. “That is damaging the country”, he said. “They are not even making peace.”
Deng said that the Chinese “are not interested in whether Sudan goes to war or not. That is not their mission, that is not their problem,”
Deng was joined by the Archbishop of Canterbury Dr Rowan Williams, who recommended a single high level figure to act as a mediator between the feuding parties and called on China to play a “positive” role in peace efforts. The Archbishops later expressed their concerns in a meeting with the British Prime Minister Gordon Brown.
