Spotlight: China makes great contributions to UN peacekeeping operations

Two Chinese UN peacekeepers were killed on July 10 during fierce fighting in Juba, the South Sudanese capital, between rival factions of the country's army, bringing the number of fallen Chinese blue helmets up to 13 since Beijing jointed the UN peacekeeping operations 26 years ago.

Their sacrifice once again mirrored the huge difficulties in the painstaking UN efforts to maintain peace and security in the world and China's great contributions to the United Nations peacekeeping operations.

This will not scare away China because the largest developing country firmly supports UN peacekeeping operations and has always taken an active part in them. 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.

The peacekeeping operations organized, led and coordinated by the United Nations, the most universal and legitimate international body in the world, are of vital significance to safeguard international peace and security.

China began its participation in the UN peacekeeping operations in 1990, when Beijing sent five military observers to the Middle East. China has over the years contributed a total of more than 30,000 peacekeepers. At present, nearly 2,500 Chinese peacekeepers are serving in nine UN peacekeeping operations.

The past years saw even more active Chinese participation in the UN peacekeeping operations, with tremendous increases both in scale and in the number of the troops contributed to the UN peacekeeping forces.

For example, in late 2013, China, for the first time, dispatched a security forces of 170 soldiers to the UN Multidimensional Integrated Stabilization Mission in Mali.

China also sent support detachments, such as engineers, transportation and medical corps, to UN peacekeeping operations.

China, a developing country as it is, now is the largest contributor of UN peacekeeping funding among developing countries, and also the largest contributor of peacekeepers among the five permanent members of the Security Council.

Currently, China is the second-largest country to share United Nations' peacekeeping costs from 2016 to 2018, just behind the United States, accounting for 10.2 percent of the total. China's contribution to the UN peacekeeping operations budget rose from 6.6 percent to 10.3 percent, surpassing Japan for the first time.

China and the United Nations have started working further toward establishing a Chinese peacekeeping standby force. To follow through on China's pledge to establish a peacekeeping standby force of 8,000 troops, a working group from the Peacekeeping Office of China's Defense Ministry paid a visit to UN headquarters in New York from June 20-24. UN Under-Secretary-General for Peacekeeping Operation Herve Ladsous and UN Under-Secretary-General for Field Support Atul Khare met the working group.

With their professional performance, Chinese peacekeepers have won recommendations from the United Nations, local governments and people as well as fellow peacekeepers of other UN member states.

UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon told Chinese leaders during his visit to China early this month that China has played a leading role in UN peacekeeping missions, sustainable development, dealing with climate change, combating epidemic diseases and other areas.

More specifically, other top UN officials spoke highly of China's contributions to UN peacekeeping operations.

For example, Ladsous and Khare praised Chinese peacekeepers for their great professionalism, dedication and generosity in carrying out UN peacekeeping operations. They said the well-equipped Chinese peacekeeping troops are a reliable force in UN peacekeeping operations and they look forward to a greater role played by China in UN peacekeeping.

"China now has become over recent years a very important contributor," Ladsous told Xinhua. "Chinese units are very well-equipped and are well-trained."

"Chinese peacekeepers have never ever had any misconduct of discipline," Khare said against a backdrop of alleged sexual abuse committed in Africa by peacekeepers from other countries. Enditem