UN affirms peacekeeping force

China’s 8,000 troops will be put on standby after training

The 8,000-strong peacekeeping standby force that President Xi Jinping promised in 2015 has finished its registration process with the UN and will be deployed after training, the Defense Ministry said on Thursday.

The force will include 28 divisions from 10 fields, ranging from infantry battalions and quick-response forces to helicopter and drone crews, said Wu Qian, the ministry’s spokesman, at a news briefing in Beijing.

“The standby force will train with United Nations standards, and be deployed to overseas peacekeeping mission areas at the appropriate time,” he said, adding that it will conduct combat-ready training and rescue missions in China before being deployed.

“Building the standby force represents China’s active efforts to support the UN and its peacekeeping mission, to shoulder more international responsibility as a big nation, and to contribute to world peace and regional stability,” he said.

Two years ago as of Thursday, Xi told the 70th session of the UN General Assembly that China would join the UN capability readiness system, and set up a standby peacekeeping force of 8,000 troops.

Xi also announced that Chihas na would set aside $1 billion for a peace and development fund with the UN in the following decade. In the following five years, China would train more than 2,000 UN peacekeeping units from different countries. It also would provide $100 million in military assistance to the African Union to support the establishment of an African standby force and boost its capacity for crisis response, he said.

On Sept 21, during a visit to UN headquarters, Foreign Minister Wang Yi said China always firmly supported and actively participated in UN peacekeeping operations.

More than 2,500 Chinese peacekeepers are participating in 10 UN-led missions, providing more personnel than the four other permanent members of the UN Security Council combined, according to UN data.

China also is the secondlargest financial contributor to peacekeeping missions, providing over 10 percent of the $7.8 billion budget for 2016-17.

Major General Zhu Chenghu, a professor at the People’s Liberation Army National Defense University, said organizing 8,000 peacekeepers across so many fields is not an easy task.

The UN’s approval of their registration shows its recognition of the quality of Chinese troops, Zhu said.

“The highly diverse standby force not only shows China’s commitment, but also its growing capability in peacekeeping missions,” he said. “It also means more and more Chinese troops are able to carry out overseas missions in unfamiliar territory, further strengthening the Chinese military’s openness and positive interactions with other militaries.”

In response to the Korean Peninsula crisis, Wu said China remains determined to make the peninsula nuclearfree, maintain regional peace and stability, and solve the issue through dialogue.

“We firmly believe dialogue is the only way to solve the issue. A military solution should not be an option,” he said. “The Chinese military will do whatever is in its power to prepare and protect national sovereignty and regional stability.”