Renewed conflict could also drag in the United States (supporting the South) and China (Bashir’s key international backer) into a dangerous and potentially escalating proxy conflict of the kind that was common in Africa throughout the Cold War. China has been investing heavily recently in neighboring Ethiopia in the hope of buying neutrality from Prime Minister Meles Zenawi in the event of war, though the government in Addis Ababa is more likely to side with its Christian co-religionists in the South.