For many of Africa's rent-seeking regimes, China's entrance as a resource-hungry global creditor is manna from the ancestors. Beijing has several unique advantages for Africa, from its role as an emerging power delinked from colonial ghosts to its miraculous feat of lifting over 600 million citizens from radical poverty. Such facts are often cited by African governments to show the dawn of a new 'win–win' global order pegged to replace the Washington Consensus.

But does Beijing represent change or simply another counterweight, capable of providing unearned revenue financing Africa's rentier regimes?

Much of this is due to the opacity with which Khartoum's captured state machinery operates, siphoning as much as 40 per cent of total oil revenue through various forms of mispricing. Meanwhile, though the Comprehensive Peace Agreement (CPA) of 2005 established that 50 per cent of revenues must be remitted to the Government of South Sudan (GOSS), this share is determined not by volume but sales.

Khartoum markets the oil nearly exclusively and determines price as well as volumes exported with little or no independent monitoring. According to UK watchdog Global Witness, major discrepancies of between 9 per cent and 26 per cent have been documented, underpaying the GOSS by as much as US$700 million. Little is known of the US$7 billion in oil revenues remitted to the South as accountability mechanisms were never factored into the CPA.

But things are set to change. The terms of the agreement facilitated the first elections in 24 years, with a referendum pegged for early 2011. Citizens of the South will decide by vote whether the future lies in a united Sudan or the creation of a new nation. But the US-backed Sudan People's Liberation Movement (SPLM) withdrew from the election, leading to the conclusion that a united Sudan is not on the cards.

Unfortunately for China, neither is the use of its pipelines to transport 10 million of 13 million barrels of oil pumped on a monthly basis. Multinationals such as Toyota Tsusho Corporation have proposed the construction of a US$1.5 billion pipeline transporting oil from South Sudan to Mombasa on Kenya's coast, pegged for completion within two to four years. When that occurs, some 85 per cent of revenue will shift from Khartoum to Juba, the capital of South Sudan, presently an 'NGO' ('non-governmental organisation') town.

China, pragmatic as ever and mindful of its state as an export-oriented economy, has allegedly proposed to partially finance the venture. The pipeline billed for construction using the Build-Own-Operate-Transfer process allegedly extends for 20 years, guaranteeing Beijing at least two decades of influence, if successful.

Currently, China is estimated to import 50 per cent to 60 per cent of Sudan's oil. Like Angola, another oil-rich dictatorship, Sudan has quickly become one of Beijing's chief footholds on the continent, providing China with 30 per cent of oil supplies, currently averaging 10 per cent of Africa's overall production.

Without secure sources of fossil fuels, China – the world's third-largest economy and counting – would certainly founder. This is because an estimated 70 per cent of imported oil is utilised by factories to fuel China's main source of strength: mass-produced goods flooding global markets, subsidised through a currency undervalued by as much as 40 per cent.

Thus, despite Sudan's status as a pariah holding just 5 billion barrels of proved reserves, Beijing's choice of strong dictatorships (which provide stable investment climates), as well as its US$20 billion gamble in Sudan, begins to make more sense.

It is unlikely that Beijing will move beyond calculated pragmatism using its current position as Sudan's largest investor to motivate for equitable and transparent exploitation of oil resources.

But failure to do so will reveal Beijing as an irrelevant geopolitical force incapable of leadership. The ball is in China's court.

BROUGHT TO YOU BY PAMBAZUKA NEWS

* This article was originally published by Forbes.
* Khadija Sharife is a journalist and visiting scholar at the Centre for Civil Society (CCS). She is based in South Africa.
* Please send comments to [email protected] or comment online at Pambazuka News.