Amid reports of continuing human rights abuses in Sudan, a serious source of future tension between China and the United States may be emerging. While the latest symptom is how to handle the Darfur crisis in the west, the underlying cause is China's growing thirst for imported oil from the Middle East and Africa. The Ministry of Commerce forecast recently that China's crude oil imports would reach a record 110 million tonnes this year, 21 per cent more than last year. In the first five months of this year, China's oil imports accounted for 42 per cent of its total oil consumption, up from 35 per cent in the same period last year. About half these vital energy supplies are from the Middle East and one-quarter are from Africa. Sudan is not yet a mainstay supplier to China. But Africa's largest country is already an important energy source, and seems set to become more so as Chinese oil production and exploration expand in Sudan. Moreover, Sudanese oil is much easier, and therefore less expensive, for Chinese refineries to process than heavier grades of Middle East oil. The major foreign oil players in Sudan are the China National Petroleum Corporation, and its state-controlled counterparts from India and Malaysia. They provided much of the investment needed to build a 1,240km pipeline from the centre of southern Sudan to an export terminal on the Red Sea. Sudan's estimated oil reserves have doubled since 2001. Output reached 345,000 barrels per day last June and the country's energy minister has predicted it will rise to 500,000 barrels per day by next year. Foreign development of Sudan's energy resources has been controversial since large quantities of oil began to be exported through the pipeline in 1999. As western oil firms retreated under pressure from their governments and human rights activists, the Asian companies moved in. First, there was a long civil war between government forces and rebels in the mainly non-Muslim, non-Arab south. This year, the focus is on Darfur, where pro-government militia groups, originally formed and armed by Khartoum to suppress a separate rebellion in the area, have launched attacks against civilians. The US imposed economic sanctions in November 1997. It bans trade between the two countries, as well as investment in Sudan by US business, including oil companies. But the US sanctions have so far excluded the China National Petroleum Corporation and its partners from Malaysia and India. This may change if United Nations agencies, human rights groups and aid organisations keep accusing the Sudanese government of using oil revenue to buy arms from China and elsewhere to crush its opponents and unleash widespread abuses. Oil now provides more than 70 per cent of Sudan's total export earnings. On a recent visit to Darfur, where as many as 30,000 people have been killed, US Senator Sam Brownback charged that by continuing to produce oil in Sudan, China was funding the military build-up by Khartoum and the arming of the pro-government militia in Darfur. Beijing faces a difficult choice between preserving its energy position and international respectability. When the UN Security Council passed a resolution on July 2 giving Khartoum 30 days to improve the situation in Darfur or face diplomatic and economic sanctions, only China and Pakistan among the 15 members failed to support the rebuke. Both abstained. The China Daily reported that Beijing's abstention showed 'its understanding of some countries' eagerness to end the violence in Sudan but also its respect for the African nation's desire to be its own master'. Michael Richardson, a former Asia editor of the International Herald Tribune, is a visiting senior research fellow at the Institute of Southeast Asian Studies in Singapore. The views expressed in this article are those of the author