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Apr 29, 2008 (The Columbus Dispatch - McClatchy-Tribune Information Services via COMTEX) -- On Zimbabwe, Tibet and Darfur, China is wrong.

At the same time that China is polishing its country for the Beijing Olympics in August, it continues to support dictators and murderers. The world should keep the focus on China's human-rights violations and appalling foreign policy.

In Zimbabwe, longtime President Robert Mugabe is still in power, even though the opposition party claims that on March 29, more voters chose Mugabe's opponent, Morgan Tsvangirai. No one knows that for sure, but the assertion gains credence from Mugabe's call for a recount of the results that his government still hasn't released, nearly a month after the balloting.

Mugabe's leadership is one of the worst things that has ever happened to his countrymen, and supporters of Tsvangirai thought this was their chance to break free of starvation, unemployment and the astonishing 100,000 percent rate of inflation. Instead, Mugabe is stalling, and his thugs are sweeping the countryside, beating, kidnapping and murdering Zimbabweans who might have voted against him.

China, instead of helping the situation, shipped 77 tons of weapons and ammunition to the country three days after Mugabe lost the election and violence already was starting. Thankfully, Zimbabwe is landlocked, and the coastal countries, South Africa, Mozambique, Angola and Namibia, have refused to let the ship dock.

The U.S. worked with those governments for that outcome.

China's Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Jiang Yu said the shipment was a purely commercial transaction that broke no laws, and that international critics of China want to "create conflict between China and African countries."

No, China did that just fine on its own.

Beijing's justification for the Zimbabwe arms shipment is probably much the same reason it lacks concern about supplying Sudan with weapons and blocks any U.N. action on the humanitarian crisis there. The Sudanese government is arming and supporting the Janjaweed militia, which is systematically murdering black farmers in the western Darfur region. These attacks are punishment for a small group's rebellion against the Arab-dominated government in Khartoum.

The people lucky enough to survive flee from their burning villages and end up in refugee camps, where many die of hunger and disease.

The United Nations estimated last week that the ethnic cleansing has claimed 300,000 lives over the past five years. "We continue to see the goal posts receding, to the point where peace in Darfur seems farther away today than ever," said John Holmes, the U.N.'s undersecretary-general for humanitarian affairs.

Beijing continues to oppress Tibetans, whose nation was incorporated into China by force half a century ago. When Tibetan Buddhist monks held protests in March and demanded their spiritual leader, the Dalai Lama, be allowed to return from exile, the Chinese violently suppressed the demonstrations, killing dozens. Now they're trying to "re-educate" Tibetans by mandating special classes for monks, civil servants and schoolchildren about the greatness of Chinese rule and the evils of the Dalai Lama. Meanwhile, people protesting China's abysmal human-rights record and foreign policy have turned out at virtually every leg of the Olympic torch's journey around the globe.

China relishes its growing economic might and craves international respect. But backing bullies around the globe and acting like one in its own back yard is not the way to earn it.

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