UN peacekeeping chief hails great professionalism of Chinese peacekeepers

Chinese peacekeepers are showing great professionalism, dedication and generosity to UN peacekeeping operations, said Herve Ladsous, UN under-secretary-general for peacekeeping operations, on Wednesday.

Ladsous made the remarks at a reception held by China's permanent mission to the UN to mark the 89th anniversary of the founding of the People's Liberation Army (PLA).

Before the reception started, a crowd of diplomats and UN officials stood in silent tribute to three Chinese peacekeepers who died in Mali and South Sudan in the past two months when they were participating in peacekeeping operations.

Ladsous commended China's contributions to UN peacekeeping and paid tribute to the sacrifices made by Chinese peacekeepers.

Ladsous said he is "very impressed" by the progress China has made to implement its pledge to establish an 8,000-strong standby peacekeeping force.

China is now the second largest financial contributor to UN peacekeeping and the largest troop contributor among the five permanent members of the UN Security Council.

To date, China's armed forces have sent over 30,000 officers and soldiers to 24 UN peacekeeping missions, and 13 of them sacrificed their lives, according to Huang Xueping, head of the Chinese delegation to the UN Military Staff Committee.

Currently, the Chinese armed forces are comprehensively implementing the important pledges China had made at last year's UN peacekeeping summit and have achieved concrete progress, said Huang.

"China will further play its role as a responsible major power, take more international responsibility and obligations, and contribute more to the cause of peace and development of mankind," he said.

Echoing this point, Liu Jieyi, China's permanent representative to the UN, said the Chinese government and the PLA will work with great commitments for world peace and will continue to bring more support to UN peacekeeping operations. Endi