There’s Method in China’s Peace Push
December 20, 2007 | 12:52 pm | by t-blender |Rate It:
asia times: Last month, Chinese peacekeepers started arriving in the troubled Darfur region of Sudan as part of the long-debated, long-awaited United Nations and African Union hybrid mission. China now contributes over 7,000 peacekeepers to 21 missions across the world, more than the rest of the UN Security Council’s permanent five members combined. Overall, China is the thirteenth-largest contributor of peacekeeping troops.
Claiming that China was complicit in the conflict through oil and weapons trade with Khartoum, rebels in the area immediately called for the withdrawal of Chinese troops. Nevertheless, the troops have stayed put. Their presence in the country illustrates how far China has come in its involvement in peacekeeping efforts.
Despite all this, China-watchers have tended to neglect peacekeeping as an expanding arena of involvement in international relations. Such is the case in Africa, China’s showcase for peacekeeping. The continent hosts the majority of ongoing missions, but troops committed by industrialized countries now account for just 6% of all troops.
In the early years after joining the UN, in the 1970s, China avoided supporting peacekeeping missions - both financially and with contributions of troops - saying that they infringed upon the sovereignty of the states involved. But after two decades of reform and opening up, China has now started to reassess its approach to peacekeeping missions.
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