China and UN Peacekeeping: Beijing�s Intentions

While addressing the United Nations (UN) General Assembly, the Chinese President Xi Jinping announced that China will substantially increase its commitments towards the United Nations’ peacekeeping efforts by contributing 8000 troops and US$ 1 billion for the China-UN Peace and Development Fund for peacekeeping operationsover a period of ten years. But coming from the world’s largest standing armed force with the world’s second largest economy, what China does have to contribute towards peacekeeping in real terms is a question. To assess the implications of this announcement, a glance through China’s past support to this effort, and to juxtapose Chinese efforts along with other four Permanent Five members of the United Nations Security Council would throw some light.

While addressing the United Nations, President Xi said that China would contribute US $ 100 million as military assistance to the African Union over the next five years along with training for 2000 foreign peacekeepers and ten mine sweeping assistance programmes over the same time period. China would also deploy a helicopter detachment as part of its peacekeeping efforts in Africa, a first of a kind initiative for Beijing.China currently contributes about 3,079 personnel as military experts towards UN peacekeeping efforts,more than all the other Permanent Five members of the UN. By pledging an 8000-strong permanent peacekeeping force, China would become the single largest troop contributing nation towards UNpeacekeeping effort. 

Beijing’s changing approach towards UN Peacekeeping

China, unlike other nations, has neither been an active contributor towards UN efforts nor been enthusiastic about peacekeeping per se. In the early decade of engagement with the UN, China was averse to peacekeeping, its initial apprehension about peacekeeping largely stemming from its concerns over Taiwan. For Beijing, its “One China” policy and the question of its sovereignty were paramount concerns. For China, in the seventies, peacekeeping was seen asnot in keeping with the principles of sovereignty. And as such, the question of nations recognising Taiwan was seen as a measure to undermine the sovereignty of the Communist State.

In the decades that followed, especially in the eighties and in the nineties, Beijing warmed up and recognised the needs of peacekeeping forces under the aegis of the UN. However, Beijing did not fail to utilise this opportunity to undermine Taiwan. China was selective, exercising its veto when it came to extending peacekeeping missions to nations that recognised Taiwan.  Beijing used each and every opportunity to either encouragenations from limiting their diplomatic engagement with Taiwan,this practice continuing into the new millennium. Illustratively, Beijing, in 2003, was able to prevail over the Liberian government to switch its allegiance from Taiwan in exchange for Chinese support for the UN Observer Mission in Liberia. 

Conversely, China has now come to recognise the role that the UN Peacekeeping can play in advancing Beijing’s interests and concerns. It was this wisdom that resulted in Beijing accepting greater UN involvement and the support for the same. Since the new millennium, China has been an active partner of the UN in this regard. And in recent years Beijing is not overtly pegging its support of UN-mandated mission with Taiwan, a significant shift in Chinese policies. 

The reasons for such a shift in Beijing’s world view could be attributed to a couple of reasons. The first and foremost would be the international exposure that UN-mandated missions provide to contributing nations. Unlike other countries with large armed forces, the Chinese military has had limited engagement with its counterparts. Apart from limited exposure, the Chinese military’s real combat experience too is limited. This is so since the last significant combat experience of China was in the 1979 border engagement with Vietnam. And in these many decades the People’s Liberation Army does not have many combat operations under its belt to boast about. UN Peacekeeping operations provides the military hierarchy some opening, however limited, to understand the nuances of international military operations, though under UN mandate.

Secondly, for an aspiring global leader, UN operations provide the Chinese leadership an occasion to demonstrate and exhibit its global responsibility while at the same time to exercise benign military options to secure its diplomatic and economic interests. The instance of Chinese Peacekeeping operations in Sudan is a pointer to this effect, wherein China was not only able to secure her commercial and strategic investment in this African nation but forestall the pressure mounted by the international community on Khartoum.

UN Peacekeeping and the Rise of China

The third reasons that could be attributed to the new found Chinese vigour towards peacekeeping could be Beijing’s geostrategic considerations. By and large, important nations in the comity of nations have advanced there national priorities by military engagement also.  To take the example of recent times, select nations, who incidentally are those who dictate global discourses, have engaged militarily, with and without UN mandates, to rewrite regional and the global order. At the same time select military engagement by globalpowers has resulted in either reinforcing existing or rewriting regional/global security architecture.

On this note, the Chinese military diplomacy has at best been limited if not counterproductive in its immediate periphery. For Beijing, which historically has either been reluctant or disinterested in military diplomacy, its new found role in UN Peacekeeping could be a path to advance the diplomatic role of its armed forces. But why UNPK- it is a question that could be debated till the end of time; while at the same time it could also be argued that military intervention in western Asia and northern Africa has now become an incubator of political instability and insecurity. For China, an entry into these hot spots as a peacekeeper/peace enforcer could be a welcome admit card since her UNSC counterparts have already exhausted their military options; if not completely at least partially. Given the fact that Chinese military options are yet to be tarnished by failed (or perceived to have failed) military expeditions, Beijing still enjoys the outside possibility of gaining greater acceptance with in the global order.

At the same time, it is also to be noted that the ambitions Silk Route/ One Belt One Route would have to traverse through troubled and instable regions of the world that are also strategically sensitive for the international comity of nations. And in this regard an UN entry would be an acceptable route for China to advance its military-diplomatic and strategic objectives.

Does this make a difference…?

Despite being the largest contributor to UN peacekeeping operations amongst the permanent members of the UNSC, Chinese contribution is not as dramatic as projected. This can be judged from a couple of angles. On the financial front- the United States, though with limited troop contribution, underwrites nearly a third (28 per cent)of the US$8.2 billion UN Peacekeeping budget.

On the troop front, there exist currently 16 UN-mandated peacekeeping operations that engage over 1,06,500 peacekeepers from a number of nations and of which the Chinese contribution is 3079,much higher than the 82 military experts from the United States. On the operational front much of Chinese peacekeeping effort is directed towards non-combat role. Most Chinese personals are technicians like engineers, medical staff and such who provide critical infrastructural and healthcare; at the same time China is also active on the logistics and transportation front.

According to reports, China as part of UN missions has thus far constructed and repaired 230 bridges and laid over 8000 km of road. Additionally, China has transported over 4,30,000 tons of materials for UN missions and has provided medical assistances to over 60,000 patients. On the combat front, Chinese engineers have defused over 8700 mines and explosives from conflict zones. Despite the limited role of Chinese personnel in ‘real’ peacekeeping efforts, the Chinese military has earned a good name for itself because of its discipline and efficiency.

None of these amount to actual peacekeeping operation but are essential support services, while at the same time such kind of engagement is keeping in line with the Chinese approach of being ‘risk averse’. Backend operations do not involve any serious risks to either men or materials unlike actual ground operations.  Needless to say the Chinese participation in UN peacekeeping missions is indeed noteworthy since Beijing has dramatically scaled up its troop contribution in a matter of a few years. But to what extent is a question at only time could tell.

At the same time it is also needed to be noted that the Chinese participation in UNPK in the scale that the President Xi Jinping has hinted would dramatically change the structure and nature of UN missions. This is so since China by virtue of its size and position has the weight to dictate the nature and course of UN operations. Until now, much of UN operations have been a mix bag of success of a number of reasons. Can the ‘Peoples Liberation Army’ change this narrative is another questions that would have to wait its turn.

...to be or not to be...

All nations that have aspirations for a global role are revisionist powers in some sense of the term. For the lucky few the world fell in their lap, and for the other, they had to snatch global acceptance the hard way (if they were lucky). China unfortunately finds itself in a terrible fix. She boasts a seat in the global ‘high table’but suffers from limited global acceptance let alone influence. Talking about influence, international influence even today is decided by the length of the barrel, however limited it may be, and not on the tip of the pen that underwrites world economy.

For China, as has already been implied, its military outreach is insignificant when compared to others and its military influence is much lesser. Thus in this backdrop, UNPK would be a politically acceptable via media for Beijing to assess and usurp its hard power; but why hard power? Well, the events in this new millennium have only gone to reinforce the old notions of powers, which is still penned down on military might and not on moral rights. For China to break free from its existingpositionsfor a power in waiting, it would have to assert its military might. Beijing’s political, economic and diplomatic importance within the global order has already been both well established and acknowledged. However Beijing’s military wherewithal is not proven let alone credited. And it is in this regard that China’s new found love of international Peacekeeping under the aegis of the United Nations should be welcomed.

Sripathi Narayanan is an Associate Fellow at CLAWS. Views expressed here, by the author are personal.