Praise for China's expanding peacekeeping role

Updated November 23, 2009 20:46:35

China continues to win praise as it aims to expand the already significant role it plays in United Nations peacekeeping. Last week, Beijing hosted what's been described as an unprecedented conference on international peacekeeping.

Presenter: Linda Mottram
Speakers: Izumi Nakamitsu, Director of Policy, Evaluation and Training, United Nations Department of Peacekeeping Operations. Dr Ron Huisken, Strategic and Defence Studies Centre, Australian National University.

MOTTRAM: In the past eight years China's role in UN peacekeeping operations has blossomed as Beijing has expanded its strategic interests. Last week China held a major international peacekeeping conference attracting military officials from many countries, as well as top UN peacekeeping officials, including Izumi Nakamitsu, UN Peacekeeping's Director of Policy, Evaluation and Training:

NAKAMITSU: Clearly the Chinese government has made a strategic decision to participate in UN peacekeeping operations. They are already the top TCC, the two contributing country amongst the P5, the permanent members of the Security Council. They have about 21-hundred peacekeepers deployed in UN peacekeeping operations, and they have the intention to gradually increase the participation in UN peacekeeping.

MOTTRAM: It's the kind of commitment that buoys the spirits of UN peacekeeping officials more used to the refusals of key developed nations, particularly the United States when a peacekeeping mandate is set and troops are required. It's that reticence that has prompted the UN to begin overtures to try to build new partnerships as it says. Ms Nakamitsu's current tour is about just that and she says the Obama administration has signaled new willing.

NAKAMITSU: There are a lot of very positive signals coming from the Obama administration people. They want to look at in very concrete terms what they can do to contribute to UN peacekeeping. Perhaps not immediately sending contingents into peacekeeping, but they are now looking at some very concrete ways to contribute to UN peacekeeping.

MOTTRAM: Clearly the US remains bruised from two long wars; one Afghanistan still ongoing. For that reason alone the prospects are limited of its troops marching off to peacekeeping operations any time soon. And while it's not just about the US and China, China too has limited its role in peacekeeping, self-imposed limitations. Dr Ron Huisken is a security specialist at the Australian National University:

HUISKEN: To the best of my knowledge they've never been prepared to commit combat troops or to peace-making, the distinction between peacekeeping and peace-making, never prepared to commit to operations of that kind. It's always on the engineering side, the medical side, the transport side. But nonetheless they in terms of the number of programs that they're officially participating in, it's a very credible record if you like.

MOTTRAM: Echoing a recent study of China's peacekeeping role by the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute, Dr Huisken says China appears to regard peacekeeping as a high reward activity.

HUISKEN: But in terms of China's overall quest if you like to fit in, to look normal, to be a contributor, to attract kudos, this is seen as a high payoff activity. But they still appear to be extremely shy about the sharper end of some peacekeeping operations.

MOTTRAM: And China insists that any operation it's involved in must have a clear United Nations Security Council mandate, not accepting the more recent popularity under the Bush administration in the United States to form so-called coalitions of the willing.

Beyond China's role however limited, the UN is still rebuilding its reputation after serious failures, most notably a series of sex abuse scandals, particularly in African peacekeeping operations. The implementation of strict new rules is still being worked on. But most of all UN peacekeeping fails most dramatically when urgent, well understood need is not met, such as was the case in Rwanda in 1994 when at least half a million Tutsis were exterminated by Hutu extremists. It's a weighty legacy as much about contributing nations themselves as about peacekeeping as an ideal.