The International Criminal Court (ICC) recently charged Sudanese President Omar Hassan al-Bashir with genocide and crimes against humanity and thus once again stirred up a controversy over issues of international law and international morality, which need to be discussed seriously.
For China, its diplomacy, including policymaking and the philosophy of its foreign affairs, is facing new challenges after having yielded tremendous achievements and made phenomenal changes both internally and externally in the past 30 years of reform and opening-up.
Generally, China's diplomatic thoughts and practices mainly originate from the following aspects: First, universally accepted norms, standards and customs of international relations that have formed the basis of the world order.
Second, the heritage of traditional Chinese thinking and culture such as magnanimity, embodied by Confucius's millenniums-old saying of "do not do to others what you would not have them do to you".
Third, reflection on the humiliating history the Chinese nation suffered because of invasions of imperialists since the two opium wars (1839-42 and 1856-60 respectively).
Fourth, summing-up of diplomatic practices since the foundation of the People's Republic of China, especially what has been experienced since the reform and opening- up started.
It is in the process of reform internally and the opening-up externally China has formed its own principles of morality by combining universally conducted norms with its own ideals. These principles of Chinese characteristic that also match widely acknowledged moral norms, have been the pillars of China's diplomacy.
The Darfur issue is no doubt a challenge for China's diplomacy. In brief, the issue is a humanitarian crisis triggered by lack of enough water and other resources. The long conflicts between the Sudanese government and local rebellious militias have led to a large number of people becoming homeless.
As reasons behind the current situation may be very complicated, we hereby only discuss how other countries should handle the situation if they follow the principles of morality and carry out actions accordingly.
