Peace
mission by Wen Xianghui
Peacekeeping is an operation organized by the international organizations
aiming at helping to maintain or restore peace and security in the conflict
ridden areas and is undertaken by military personnel bearing no right of
enforcement. The peacekeeping operation was initiated in June 1948 by the UN
against the backdrop of the Cold War. Taking part in peacekeeping operation has
increasingly become a vital attribute demonstrating and measuring the leverage
every state can exert in the UN. To respond to this development, the Chinese
military is exercising wide-ranging participation in peacekeeping operations and
for that matter, has made positive contributions to the cause of safeguarding
world peace.
By contrast, peacekeeping operation distinguishes itself from the
traditional military actions in terms of the following notable traits: To begin
with, peacekeeping operation must secure the mandate of the international
organizations. Secondly, the deployment must be first of all accepted by states
involved in the conflict. Thirdly, peacekeepers should do their best to be
impartial and neutral and not to take sides with any party in the process of
executing peacekeeping mission. Last but not least, although deployment of
military personnel is involved in peacekeeping operation and the servicemen are
usually the principle part of it, peacekeeping operation is nevertheless
considered non-coercive diplomatic tool by nature. The purpose of peacekeeping
operation is to cooperate with and promote political negotiations and
furthermore, the peacekeeping troops are not allowed to coerce the parties
involved in the conflict to embrace any agreement. Generally speaking, the
peacekeeping troops can't use force except for self-defense purpose.
Due to the absence of a UN standing force, the UN's peacekeeping troops are
all made available by the UN member states of their own free will at the request
of the Secretary General of the UN. The peacekeeping forces for a certain
peacekeeping mission are usually made up of troops from over a dozen or even
scores of nations.
China began to get involved in the UN's peacekeeping operations in 1989. In
that year, the Chinese government sent nonmilitary experts to join the UN
Namibia transitional period aid group to oversee the Namibia general election.
In 1990, China dispatched military observers to the UN Ceasefire Supervision
Organization in the Mid-East, marking the beginning of the Chinese military's
official participation in the UN peacekeeping operations. In April 1992, China's
military engineering contingent went to Cambodia to carry out UN missions, which
makes the first time for the Chinese forces to send an organic unit to take part
in the peacekeeping operations. As of February 28, 2006, China has 863
peacekeeping personnel, including military observers, staff officers, engineer
troops, transportation troops and medical units, working in eight UN
peacekeeping operations such as the UN Ceasefire Supervision Organization,
outnumbering any other permanent member states of the UN Security Council in
terms of peacekeepers in active participation in the UN peacekeeping operations.
The Chinese engineer troops being designated to join the UN ad hoc forces in
Lebanon are on standby and will depart for undertaking UN peacekeeping mission
recently.
By Lu Jianxin
(Apr. 27, PLA Daily)
