Chinese Police Help Keep the World Safer
THE year 2020 marks the 75th anniversary of the founding of the United Nations (UN), the 20th anniversary of Chinese police’s participation in UN peacekeeping operations, and the fifth anniversary of President Xi Jinping’s attendance at the UN Leaders’ Summit on Peacekeeping.
In January 2000, China sent the first group of 15 police officers to the UN’S peacekeeping operation in East Timor. After 20 years of dedicated work, Chinese police officers have become important contributing forces of the UN peacekeeping operations.
Always Prepared
Liu Yong is the commander of the seventh contingent of Chinese peacekeepers to Mali. It was the third time he was on peacekeeping missions. From Darfur, Sudan, to South Sudan and Mali, Liu has worked his way up through the ranks by fulfilling different tasks and became the commander of the contingent from the head of an engineering squad.
In Nyala, Darfur of Sudan, the engineering squad drilled a 100-meter deep well in granite ground within a few weeks. This rapid response effectively brought much needed water to the local community.
In Mundri of South Sudan, Liu learned first-hand the harm conflicts have on people’s lives. One day, clashes between government and non-government forces broke out less than one km from the camp of Liu and his fellow soldiers. On the early morning
after the clashes, local civilians took advantage of a truce to seek refuge in the camp out of trust in Chinese peacekeepers.
The most dangerous place in Liu’s view was Mali. “In addition to clashes between local government and non-government forces, terrorist attacks were also frequent. The terrorists carried out indiscriminate attacks on peacekeepers and they did not stop just because we are Chinese troops. So we had to be vigilant and stay alert,” said Liu.
According to Liu, over the 456 days on mission in Mali, his troops kept alert 24 hours a day. “Terrorists may attack at any time. Each guard post was responsible for an area of 300 to 500 meters wide and about one kilometer long. To guard such a large area, our sentries must keep sharp,” said Liu.
On the afternoon of July 22, 2019, the French military camp near the city of Gao, Mali, was attacked by terrorists. Two terrorists detonated explosives loaded in a pickup about 800 meters to the northeast of the UN camp. About 30 French military personnel were injured. Liu responded swiftly. He ordered all personnel to enter the covered dugout and close the camp gate, and get ready to fight.
“It was a huge test to soldiers who grew up in a peaceful environment,” said Liu.
“In the face of the dangerous and complex environment, we had to be hard on ourselves and take every moment as if we were in an actual combat situation,” he added. “We must always be ready for battle.”
The sudden outbreak of COVID-19 complicated the already challenging situation for Liu and his troops. As security forces, they were responsible for rapid reaction support, guarding and defending the Super Camp in the eastern combat zone of the UN Multidimensional Integrated Stabilization Mission (MINUSMA) in Gao, Mali, and patrolling the perimeter. To rapidly respond to any emergency, peacekeepers have to wear heavy body armor and face masks in sizzling heat. “We had to keep vigilant against both terrorists and COVID-19.”
Thanks to the painstaking efforts of Liu and his troops, the Chinese peacekeeping security detachment became the only one of the MINUSMA units that did not suspend its mission due to the pandemic.
During their peacekeeping duties in Mali, Chinese peacekeepers also participated in the building of the local community.
In a run-down primary school, teachers and students proudly fly the Malian national flag despite ongoing armed conflicts. Liu and his troops were deeply moved by the scene. “In such a war-torn country, people showed such strong patriotism. It is admirable,” he said. The Chinese troops made a fivemeter-long steel flagpole and presented it to the school along with a new Malian flag with a solemn flag-raising ceremony.
When they headed home after their stint, teachers and students in the school held a special ceremony for them. A local interpreter told Liu that the ceremony was the Muslim way to show appreciation and best regards.
Liu said nothing made them more proud than to be recognized by the local people.
As UN Under-secretary-general for Peacekeeping Operations Jean-pierre Lacroix said, “Chinese peace
keepers have played a valuable role in several UN operations over the past 30 years.”
Safeguarding World Peace
Over the past 20 years, Chinese police have made their mark in UN peacekeeping history. From East Timor to Bosnia and Herzegovina, Haiti, and South Sudan, they have helped rebuild people’s homes after armed conflicts in nine countries on four continents. From individual officers to contingents, China has been making increasingly greater contributions to the UN peacekeeping endeavor. Now, it is capable of sharing its peacekeeping experience and contributing its wisdom in that regard, making positive contributions to building a community of a shared future for humanity.
Since first putting on their blue berets, Chinese peacekeepers have shown the world that China has taken an active role in maintaining international peace.
In October 2004, a Chinese anti-riot police squad arrived in Port-au-prince, Haiti’s capital. On the afternoon of January 12, 2010, a 7.3-magnitude earthquake struck Port-au-prince, causing the collapse of the UN peacekeeping headquarters building there. Eight Chinese police officers laid down their lives. However, Chinese police didn’t stop performing their duties. They wiped off their tears, overcame incessant aftershocks, and devoted themselves to disaster relief and maintaining social stability.
In January 2013, an armed conflict broke out in Rumbek, South Sudan. Chinese peacekeepers, along with the UN peacekeeping force, braved a hail of gunfire and moved civilians to safe places.
In 2014 and 2015, Liberia in West Africa was hit hard by the Ebola epidemic. Chinese peacekeepers, while actively carrying out peacekeeping operations, worked with local government and people to fight the epidemic.
In December 2016, China established the world’s first standing peacekeeping police squad, marking a new milestone in the peacekeeping endeavor of a major country.
Up to now, China has dispatched more than 2,600 police officers to the UN peacekeeping mission, eight of which have sacrificed their lives for the cause of world peace. There are still 33 officers fulfilling peacekeeping duties in South Sudan, Cyprus, Darfur, and the UN headquarters.
China has not only committed itself to participating in all UN peacekeeping efforts, but has also taken concrete actions.
China is “firmly committed to peaceful development and will always safeguard world peace.” In September 2015, Chinese President Xi Jinping attended the Leaders’ Summit on Peacekeeping and announced to the world six measures to support the UN in improving and strengthening its peacekeeping operations, including joining a new UN Peacekeeping Capability Readiness System, taking the lead in setting up a standing peacekeeping police squad, and training 2,000 peacekeepers from other countries.
The performance of Chinese peacekeepers has won high recognition from the UN. On April 9, 2018, UN Secretary-general Antonio Guterres said during a visit to the China Peacekeeping Police Training Center in Beijing that China has not only sent a large number of peacekeepers to world hotspots, but it is also the country that invests the second largest amount of money in global peacekeeping endeavor. China has not only committed itself to participating in all UN peacekeeping efforts, but has also taken concrete actions.
In June 2018, Executing Deputy Minister of Public Security Wang Xiaohong made China’s stance on peacekeeping clearer at the Second UN Chiefs of Police Summit at the UN Headquarters in New York. China will get more actively involved in peacekeeping, recommend more talent to the UN, and share its experience with all countries in managing peacekeeping teams so as to build a safe global community, he said.
At the critical moment in the global fight against the pandemic, the Chinese government has decided to send a police squad on peacekeeping mission to Abyei in Africa. The members are now ready to set off.
Staying Committed
A permanent member of the UN Security Council, China has been championing the building of a community of a shared future for humanity. It has been following the principle of global governance featuring extensive consultation, joint contribution and shared benefits and working as an important participant
and firm supporter of UN peacekeeping operations. Tijani Mohammed-bande, president of the 74th Session of the UN General Assembly, said that China is playing a bigger role in UN peacekeeping operations.
Over the past 20 years, Chinese police have shared their experience and conflict solutions with the international community. At the UN headquarters, they participated in the design, formulation, and revision of UN training programs, policies and regulations, and strategic plans regarding peacekeeping operations. In East Timor, they applied Chinese experience in resolving community disputes. In Kosovo, they helped improve police services for refugees, and carried out humanitarian assistance, making important contributions to the peace process in Kosovo. In Liberia, Chinese police explored and established a number of empirical practices, including information-technology-driven peacekeeping police service, a joint militarypolice service mechanism, equipment and materials management, and environmental regulations for the camps. In Sudan, Sun Dongxing, a Chinese peacekeeping police officer, donated his savings and funded the building of a police station. The local government named it Dongxing Police Station.
China attaches great importance to cooperation with the UN and other international partners. It has co-organized peacekeeping training, and given priority to programs for African countries. Capacity building has been a focus in China’s peacekeeping agenda. During the past five years, the country has trained more than 1,000 peacekeeping police officers from different countries.
“Peacekeeping is an important part of China’s participation in international police cooperation,” said Liao Jinrong, director of the International Cooperation Bureau of the Ministry of Public Security. “Chinese police will actively participate in international law enforcement cooperation, and take part in more and higher-quality peacekeeping operations.” C
AT the beginning of this year, people around the globe had a multitude of reasons to expect 2020 to be a super year for biodiversity and action on climate change emergencies. The year 2020 marks the 75th anniversary of the United Nations, the first UN summit on biodiversity at the level of heads of state and government, the 26th session of the Conference of the Parties of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), and the second extraordinary meeting of the Conference of the Parties to the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD).
However it turns out that the year has been punctuated by raging wild fires, locust attacks, and the COVID-19 pandemic. Feeling their destructive impact on our economic and social activities, we have been prompted to rethink our relationship with nature, and ponder over ways to rehabilitate eco-environments and preserve biodiversity, all in the interest of the long-term well-being and development of humankind.
Chinese Practices
In 1988, the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) convened the Ad Hoc Working Group of Experts on Biological Diversity to explore the need for an international convention on biological diversity. Soon afterwards, it established the Ad Hoc Working Group of Technical and Legal Experts on Biological Diversity to prepare an international legal instrument for the conservation and sustainable use of biological diversity. Its work culminated in May 1992 with the Nairobi Conference for the Adoption of the Agreed Text of the Convention on Biological Diversity. The Convention was opened for signing on June 5, 1992 at the United Nations Conference on Environment and Development, and entered into force on December 29, 1993. It has so far been signed by 196 parties.
Aiming toward the vision 2050 on biodiversity of “living in harmony with nature,” the Convention set the objectives for conservation of biological diversity,
sustainable use of its components, and the fair and equitable sharing of the benefits arising out of the utilization of genetic resources. Under its framework, a number of agreements, decisions, and plans on biodiversity have been produced, and relevant institutions have been improved in fields that include scientific and policy research, implementation for set goals, information sharing, fund allocation, technology transfer, and capacity building for developing countries.
Despite the increased agreements reached by
CBD signatories, its secretariat, subsidiary bodies, and other organizations on setting science-based goals, increasing monetary input, and improving implementation mechanisms, the decline in global biodiversity has not been reversed. The Living Planet Report 2020 of the World Wildlife Fund (WWF) shows that the population sizes of vertebrates saw an alarming average drop of 68 percent between 1970 and 2016, with biodiversity loss especially egregious in certain regions like Latin America and the Caribbean, and the populations of some species dwindling disproportionately faster.
Since becoming a party to the CBD in 1993, China has been actively involved in its various missions, building a beautiful country at home and expanding cooperation on increasing biodiversity globally. Next May it will for the first time host the 15th Conference of the Parties (COP15) of the CBD under the theme “Ecological Civilization: Building a Shared Future for All Life on Earth.”
On September 21 this year, China’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Ministry of Ecology and Environment released a position paper for the United Nations Summit on Biodiversity, titled Building a Shared Future for All Life on Earth: China in Action. The paper elaborates upon China’s philosophy of ecological civilization, policy measures, promotion of sustainable development as well as its efforts to encourage society-wide engagement in promoting global biodiversity governance in a constructive way, and strengthening international exchanges and cooperation. Through ample data and solid case examples, the paper illustrates China’s achievements and experience in reserving biodiversity, stresses its firm support for multilateralism, and gives its stance and proposals on global biodiversity governance.
The successful practice of China proves that
China’s exploration for a path of development amid ecological preservation is also meaningful to other countries.
science-based and systematic reservation measures can restore vitality in nature. Taking the giant panda, Tibetan antelope, crested ibis, and Milu (Père David’s deer) as examples, their populations have been recovering steadily under effective protection. A native species in the warm and humid regions at the middle and lower reaches of the Yellow and Yangtze rivers, the Milu deer disappeared from the wild at the beginning of the last century after continuous population reduction due to climate and human factors. In 1985 China imported 20 heads of the deer from the U.K. After 35 years of research, assisted reproduction, and protection, the animal’s population in China has grown to 8,000. It is therefore lauded by the International Union for Conservation of Nature as among the most successfully reintroduced species. China is equally devoted to the protection of other rare animals like the Yangtze finless porpoise, Siberian tiger, snow leopard, and Chinese pangolin.
Biodiversity is a key component of ecological civilization. China’s philosophy of ecological civilization underlines the harmony between people and nature, and focuses on innovative, integrated, and green development. Necessary institutions and mechanisms have been established to achieve China’s goals of ecological protection. As a developing country with a large population, China’s exploration for a path of development amid ecological preservation is also meaningful to other countries.
Participation by Corporations and Social Organizations
China’s position paper recognizes the contribution by businesses and social organizations. For instance, it mentions the Forest Declaration: in 2015, nine Chinese enterprises, WWF and six NGOS and industrial associations jointly issued the Forest Declaration, calling on relevant Chinese enterprises to work together toward the goal of zero deforestation in the supply chain of timber products by 2030. Following its unveiling at the 2015 climate conference in Paris, more companies and organizations endorsed the declaration, representing half of the real estate mar
ket and 30 percent of the wood flooring producers in China.
In June of the following year, another 28 Chinese wood flooring companies signed up to uphold it, and made action plans accordingly. They are also members of Global Forest & Trade Network-china (GFTNCHINA). At present more than 92 percent of GFTN participating companies are able to trace the whole sourcing and processing steps of their products, and 50 percent of them have Forest Management and Chain of Custody certifications. In doing so they have minimized the negative impact on forests by logging.
Chinese companies are also leading global efforts to stop illegal trade of wild life through the Internet. According to Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES), the annual volume of illegal trade of wild plants and animals stands at US $20 billion. As the global combat against such trade is intensifying, more transactions have been moved from real-world markets to online platforms. In response, in 2017 the WWF, TRAFFIC (a wildlife trade monitoring network), the International Fund for Animal Welfare (IFAW), and 11 Chinese Internet companies jointly founded an alliance to combat illegal trade of wildlife in the cyberspace. Its members conduct rigorous censoring of trade information about wildlife and relevant products, stop the circulation of illegal information, assist in law enforcement, and formulate action plans on combating illegal trade of wildlife and related products on the Internet.
In March 2018, 21 Internet giants in North America, Asia, Europe, and Africa, including ebay, Google, and Microsoft joined in, making the alliance a global one. By March this year member companies had removed or prohibited about three million pieces of information about illegal transactions involving wildlife on their websites.
With support from China’s Ministry of Ecology and Environment, eight organizations including the Paradise International Foundation and WWF founded a civilian organization for biodiversity preservation in May 2019. More than 60 entities signed on to it within a year, affirming the public’s strong interest in this endeavor and in international cooperation on biodiversity protection.
More International Cooperation
We humans share this beautiful planet with all other animals, plants, and microorganisms on it.
Dr. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, director-general of the World Health Organization, has warned the international community that COVID-19 will not be the last pandemic; and UNEP revealed in a recent report that about 75 percent of all emerging infectious diseases are zoonotic, and are closely related with human activities. In the face of global environmental challenges, no country can remain insulated from them; all countries should, and must, step up cooperation with each other.
In a time of a slumping global economy and resurgent unilateralism, consensus should be reached worldwide that we humans should respect and follow the rule of nature, protect nature, and rehabilitate it.
In May next year, parties to the CBD will convene in Kunming to discuss a post-2020 global biodiversity framework. Topics are expected to cover setting goals, mobilization of more resources to ensure implementation and accountability, and effective enforcement of the convention. We believe that China will play an exemplary role in advancing this framework, conduct green diplomacy, enhance cooperation with other CBD signature countries, and make the 15th conference a milestone event in the CBD history. C
Editor’s Note:
The third volume of Xi Jinping: The Governance of China has been published by the Foreign Languages Press in both Chinese and English. The volume is a collection of 92 articles, including speeches, conversations, instructions, and letters of Xi, general secretary of the Communist Party of China Central Committee, between October 18, 2017 and January 13, 2020.
The third volume records the practices of the CPC Central Committee with Comrade Xi Jinping at the core in uniting and leading the whole Party and Chinese people of all ethnic groups to make new and major progresses in various undertakings of the Party and country since the 19th CPC National Congress. It is an authoritative work that fully and systematically reflects Xi Jinping Thought on Socialism with Chinese Characteristics for a New Era.
To help our readers better understand key points of the book, our column, by zooming in on a specific topic for each issue, presents bilingual excerpts of the book. The topic for this issue is China’s diplomacy as a major country. global developments. We should view China’s role in the context of its relations with the rest of the world so as to clearly define its position and role in an evolving international landscape, and adopt a foreign policy that befits China’s role.
– Speech at the Central Conference on Foreign Affairs
June 22, 2018