Stopping the genocide in Darfur needs a mandatory UN Security Council resolution. This is apparently blocked by Khartoum’s protector in the UN Security Council, China. Why? China is run by out-and-out Kissingerian realists. It doesn’t care one way or the other about the deaths of black African Muslims. It has oil concessions in Sudan, large for the hosts but chickenfeed in relation to China’s overall needs. It doesn’t want to offend other Arab oil exporters that in turn don’t want to offend Khartoum and don’t care about the killings either. Finally it is worried about setting a precedent for intervention in China’s internal affairs. (For a hopeless, quixotic and politically incorrect argument that the last fear is ill-founded, see here .)
These are substantial interests, but not strategically vital ones. Arab oil exporters sell to countries they disagree with, like the USA, which is powerful, and Australia, which isn’t. Sudan needs China more than the reverse. Precedents are in the eye of the beholder. So here’s the question: is there some other diplomatic Monopoly card, held by countries that care a bit about genocide, that China’s leaders might care about more? Yes: more voting power in the IMF. The USA is trying to secure them this, the Europeans oppose.
Why not make the linkage?
PS update: It’s not arbitrary. The IMF charter has no wide political content, but it’s an instrument of global governance; and it looks proper to me to hold China to its (very Confucian) obligations of stewardship of world peace in the framework where it has been given great authoriy, the UN Security Council.
How do you get voting rights at the IMF? We have so many because we deposited so much gold and cash into it in 1948 when it was set up. Solution – China gets rid of a big chunk of its spare forex reserves by depositing them at the IMF, rather than backing yet more credit creation in its own banking system.
Trebles all round!
The short answer is given in Articles 3 and 38 of the IMF Articles of Agreement: an increase in quotas requires a three-fifths majority of the members and 85% of the existing quotas, plus the consent of the country concerned. See http://www.imf.org/external/pubs/ft/aa/index.htm. Current quotas here: http://www.imf.org/external/np/sec/memdir/members… Collectively, Europe has more votes than the USA.
This Ishmael moron has been posting white supremisist garbage on a few blogs in the past weeks. Can we please ban his IP or something?
[Done. Thanks. MK.]
"Yes: more voting power in the IMF. The USA is trying to secure them this, the Europeans oppose."
Well, it looks like African countries are opposed too.
http://politics.guardian.co.uk/economics/story/0,…