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BEIJING—China pledged further investments in war-torn Sudan’s oil and gas reserves at the start of a state visit to Beijing by President Omar al-Bashir, who is wanted by the International Criminal Court for alleged war crimes.

International rights activists say that Chinese investment to secure a supply of oil has perpetuated decades of violence in the Darfur region.

The state-owned China National Petroleum Corp. and Sudan’s Oil Ministry on Wednesday inked an initial deal to advance oil and gas cooperation, although the scale of the agreement remained unclear. Sudan exports more than half of its daily oil output to China and is China’s sixth largest source of overseas oil.

The two Sudans continue to disagree on how to share billions of dollars in oil revenue. Southern Sudan holds three-quarters of the country’s known oil reserves as well as unexploited deposits, while Chinese-built pipelines are used to transport oil to refineries and ports in the north. Mr. Bashir, who leads northern Sudan’s government from Khartoum, has threatened to close oil pipelines if the south doesn’t maintain a 50-50 revenue-sharing agreement dating from 2005, or doesn’t agree to a fee for each barrel of oil it produces.

Mr. Bashir received a formal welcome complete with honor guard at the Great Hall of the People in Beijing. President Hu Jintao met Mr. Bashir and said his visit would “consolidate and develop the traditional Chinese-Sudanese friendship,” according to a statement published by the state-run Xinhua news agency.

The International Criminal Court issued a warrant for Mr. Bashir’s arrest in 2009 for his alleged war crimes in Darfur, and he rarely travels abroad. His flight was diverted as it flew over Turkmenistan on Monday, forcing him to return to Tehran, his transit point for Beijing. It remains unclear whether Turkmenistan’s government was under pressure from other governments not to let the Sudanese leader pass through the country’s air space. A spokesman for Sudan’s Foreign Ministry said the flight was diverted for technical reasons, delaying Mr. Bashir’s arrival.

Beijing has appeared unmoved by withering international criticism over its friendship with Mr. Bashir.

“When the American companies refused to work in the oil fields and when restrictions were imposed on the Western companies operating in Sudan, we found in China the real partner,” Mr. Bashir said in an interview with Xinhua published on Sunday.

Sudan accounted for more than 5% of China’s crude imports last year. A crimp in Sudanese oil supply in the coming months would be a blow for China, which is already expecting energy shortages throughout the summer.

“There definitely exists uncertain factors for the country’s oil supply to China,” said Liu Hongwu, director of the Institute of African Studies at Zhejiang Normal University. “If relations between north and south continue to deteriorate, it could cast a shadow…on China’s oil and gas resources in Sudan.”

Beijing says it will use Mr. Bashir’s visit, his first to the Chinese capital since 2006, to try to find a political solution to violence in the region.

Analysts say China’s economic interests overseas are forcing it to reconsider its policy of noninterference in the internal affairs of other countries and involve itself in conflicts. Beijing has become increasingly involved in the conflict in Libya, hosting leaders from both the Gadhafi regime and the opposition National Transitional Council in recent weeks, and has sent envoys to the rebel stronghold of Benghazi to survey the civil war’s damage to its investments.

—Sue Feng contributed to this article.Write to Brian Spegele at brian.spegele@wsj.com and Jason Dean at jason.dean@wsj.com

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