UNITED NATIONS – Asserting its diplomatic muscle far beyond the role it has traditionally played, China yesterday blocked a British-American motion at the Security Council to impose targeted sanctions against four Sudanese individuals accused of atrocities in Sudan’s Darfur region, where, according to the Bush administration, a genocide is occurring.

The Chinese motion, made in a letter to the council’s rotating president in the late afternoon, marked a new step in the increasingly powerful role China has taken in international bodies, and particularly at the Security Council, where it has veto power.

The move, also supported by Russia and Qatar, effectively stopped the implementation of targeted sanctions for the first time since the council decided in principle to apply them a year ago. By coincidence, the council’s president for the month of April is Ambassador Wang Guangya of China.

The Chinese muscle-flexing at the council came on the eve of a visit to America by President Hu, who arrives in Seattle today, then moves on to Washington to be welcomed by President Bush.

The communist president, who is hoping his visit will be a prelude to new, lucrative trade deals between America and China, can expect a stormy reception. In Seattle, protesters were already organizing yesterday to ensure that human rights – including the imprisonment of political dissidents, members of Falun Gong, and Buddhists who remain loyal to the Dalai Lama – are not forgotten amid the pomp and ceremony.

On April 30, demonstrations are expected in Washington to mark the genocide in Darfur being committed with the connivance of members of the Sudanese government. The Rally to Stop Genocide is expected to attract a broad spectrum of prominent religious leaders, politicians, human rights activists, “celebrities,” and survivors of the Holocaust and atrocities in Cambodia, Kosovo, Srebrenica, Rwanda, southern Sudan, and Darfur.

The genocide in Darfur was given further prominence yesterday when Nicholas Kristof of the New York Times was awarded a Pulitzer Prize for his scathing commentary on the failure of world powers to prevent the slaughter.

At the United Nations yesterday, China and Russia formed a common diplomatic front that has often clashed with the other three veto-yielding powers in the 15-member Security Council – America, Britain, and France. But traditionally, as one diplomat familiar with the inner workings of the council said yesterday, Russia has taken the lead role while China has played the silent partner.

Most recently, those roles were highlighted when America and its allies began pushing for punitive measure against Iran. Russia did most of “the heavy lifting,” the diplomat said, while China quietly maintained its opposition to sanctions. But yesterday it was China that took the lead in opposing the proposed targeted sanctions against Sudan.

When asked about China’s actions, the outgoing Russian ambassador, Andrey Denisov, did not deny that the two countries’ roles had been reversed. “Even if it looks so, I don’t see any significance in it,” he told The New York Sun. China’s Mr. Wang said only that all council members have an equal voice.

Last year the council passed a resolution that approved the imposition of sanctions against individuals accused of atrocities in the Darfur crisis. Secretary-General Annan was asked to name a panel of experts who went to Sudan, and the panel composed a blacklist of 17 such individuals.

Britain recently proposed its own list of eight men responsible for atrocities. Out of that list, America agreed to include four names, which have not yet been publicized, proposing that a sanctions committee impose financial measures against them. The list, described by America and Britain as “balanced,” includes a Sudanese government official, a member of the government-backed Janjaweed militia, and two Darfur rebel leaders.

“We’ve been trying to get this process in gear for a year,” American Ambassador John Bolton said, adding that America and its allies have come up with “a solid list” for the imposition of targeted sanctions. The list, he stressed, is not necessarily final. It is “a down payment. It’s certainly not the end of the sanctions process,” he said.

Once handed to the council’s committee last Wednesday, sanctions would have been imposed on the four individuals named on the list – so long as no objections were raised by any council member within two working days. While Russia and Qatar verbally raised objections in council consultations yesterday morning, it was China that, crucially, put the objection in writing late afternoon.

Mr. Wang downplayed suggestions that China’s economic interests in Sudan are behind Beijing’s assertive role in objecting to punitive measures against members of the Khartoum government. While he knows the issue is raised often, China’s objection to the American motion stems from a principled position, Mr. Wang said, since economic sanctions always hurt “the people, not the regime.”

In many past cases, sanctions also “proved to be less productive to solutions” to the problems they were intended to address, Mr. Wang added. Last week, he said, the Security Council asked Sudanese officials and Darfur rebels to reach a negotiated agreement in talks in Abuja, Nigeria. Any action prior to the April 30 deadline for the Abuja talks would hurt that process, he said.

But Mr. Annan was skeptical. “Are we certain that we will get an agreement by the end of April?” he told reporters yesterday. “We also have said we wanted it at the end of December last year. Four months on – we are looking at the end of April – can we have it? In the meantime, what happens on the ground?”

When asked how to stop what the Bush administration has defined as genocide in Darfur, Mr. Wang said the council “has never pronounced itself on the [issue of] genocide.” He acknowledged the worsening situation in Darfur, but said that “we have to see how this human crisis can be addressed within the big framework about how to achieve peace.”