[hedgetrimmer]

For years, the rebels have attacked oil installations, seeking to deprive the Sudan government of the wherewithal to pursue a civil war that has killed more than 2 million people and displaced 4 million from their homes over the past two decades.

But the Chinese laborers are protected: They work under the vigilant gaze of Sudanese government troops armed largely with Chinese-made weapons — a partnership of the world's fastest-growing oil consumer with a pariah state accused of fostering genocide in its western Darfur region.

China's transformation from an insular, agrarian society into a key force in the global economy has spawned a voracious appetite for raw materials, sending its companies to distant points of the globe in pursuit — sometimes to lands shunned by the rest of the world as rogue states. China's relationship with Sudan has become particularly deep, demonstrating that China's commercial relations are intensifying human-rights concerns outside its borders while beginning to clash with U.S. policies and interests.

Sudan is China's largest overseas oil project. China is Sudan's largest supplier of arms, according to a former Sudan government minister. Chinese-made tanks, fighter planes, bombers, helicopters, machine guns and rocket-propelled grenades have intensified Sudan's 2-decade-old north-south civil war. A cease-fire is in effect, and a peace agreement is scheduled to be signed. However, fighting in Sudan's Darfur region rages on, as government-backed Arab militias push African tribes off their land.

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1309291/posts