During the spy-plane affair last month, China’s President Jiang Zemin puzzled observers by decamping to Latin America: Cuba, Venezuela, Uruguay, Brazil, Argentina–all of which have seats on the commission. Jiang’s complaints of American hypocrisy often found a “sympathetic ear,” says one foreign diplomat in Beijing. And at a conference last October, China convinced 44 African states to endorse its language effectively condemning the U.S. approach to human rights. To encourage them to sign on, Beijing canceled $1.2 billion in debt owed by African nations.
Apparently, China did not renege on its pledge to support the United States. But did it do something even more clever–encourage other countries to do the deed instead?
