Conclusion: China, India & the Politics of Sudan's Asian Alternatives

Summary

On 30 August 1999, the first Sudanese crude oil exports were dispatched from the new port of Masra al-Bashir on the Red Sea. The inaugural shipment heading for Singapore and Asian markets was celebrated as a government victory against external adversity and the means of defeating its internal adversaries: ‘We have defeated all the foreign enemies wishing to stop the export of the oil. We must now defeat the internal enemy who may try to halt the full utilisation of the oil revenue.’ Together with the opening of the Khartoum refinery, this landmark event distilled the material success of Sudan's Chinese-led, Malaysian-assisted oil development, and came nearly a year after the August 1998 US missile attack on a pharmaceutical factory in Khartoum. President Bashir described the exports as God's reward for ‘Sudan's faithfulness’. It could also be said that the oil now flowing from southern Sudan to overseas markets, and the revenue flowing into the central state in Khartoum, represented salvation for the NIF. Not long after these first oil exports, the direction of the NIF's Islamist political project changed when Hassan al-Turabi was sidelined from power in December 1999. By the time employees of ONGC Videsh confirmed India's arrival in Sudan by ceremonially raising the Indian flag in the GNPOC Heglig camp on 18 May 2003, Omar al-Bashir had consolidated his palace power, peace negotiations with the SPLM/A were under way, and conflict in Darfur was escalating after an audacious rebel attack in April on a government air force base in al-Fasher.