Libyan war accelerates Chinese debate over “non-intervention”

[Hannah Bell]

The NATO-led war on Libya is fuelling a debate in the Chinese ruling elite over its official foreign policy of “non-intervention” in the internal affairs of other countries. While the policy was always more of a myth than reality, China has used it as a convenient means for doing deals with repressive regimes and criticising, when it suited, the military interventions of the US and its allies.

The increasingly blatant use of military aggression by the US and European powers to further their economic and strategic interests, however, is causing Beijing to rethink. The US and European bombing of Libya has put Chinese investments worth billions of dollars at risk, along with the lives of 35,860 Chinese nationals working in Libya.

Sections of the Chinese military argue that China must have the military capacity to defend its rapidly growing economic and strategic interests in every corner of the globe. China Military, a People’s Liberation Army (PLA) newspaper, commented on April 4 that overseas investment by Chinese companies was increasing at an annual rate of 54 percent. “At the end of 2010, our foreign investing and cooperating firms numbered nearly 16,000, with 1.4 million personnel, and total overseas assets amounted to almost $US1.2 trillion… How to effectively protect these increasingly expanding overseas interests is a new subject before us.”

In 1971, the Chinese elite reached a rapprochement with US imperialism, forming a de facto alliance against the Soviet Union. Beijing maintained relations with right-wing, US-backed regimes such as the Chilean military dictatorship of General Augusto Pinochet. In 1979, China launched a devastating invasion of Vietnam as part of Washington’s efforts to restabilise the region following its military withdrawal from Vietnam...

http://www.wsws.org/articles/2011/apr2011/chin-a19.shtml

[Kurska]

1. When the rebels win they will remember their friends.

And China will not be among them. Who knows how many lives could have been saved if China and Russia hadn't stalled the security council

[Hannah Bell]

2. there are no "friends" in politics. the fact that khaddafi is being attacked after acceding to

the west's demands demonstrates that.

as does the fate of the former western asset, saddam hussein.

[Kurska]

3. The west didn't violate any deal with Gaddafi.

As far as I'm concerned the deal was "Give up your WMD programs and your support of terrorism and we'll accept you back into the family of nations". He did and he was welcomed. That said, nothing in the deal gave him carte blanche to slaughter his own people. WMD programs and terrorism were two sins Gadaffi was redeemed for in the eyes of the international community, slaughtering his own people en masse is a completely new one.