The United Nations and other key members of the international community should create and implement policies to encourage China to continue expanding its role in U.N. peacekeeping efforts, Bates Gill and Chin-Hao Huang suggest in a policy paper on China and multilateral peacekeeping, released by the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute.
Gill, SIPRI's current director, and Huang, a researcher for the institute's China and global security program, are encouraging the U.N. to work more closely with its Chinese counterparts on peacekeeping. The authors outline several measures the U.N. may consider, such as encouraging China to increase its financial commitments to the agency's Department of Peacekeeping Operations.
Gill and Huang also note that the African Union can strengthen its peacekeeping and peace-building capacities by establishing greater bilateral agreements between its members and China. Meanwhile, for the United States and Europe, the two experts are encouraging the two blocs to also strengthen their bilateral relations with the Chinese military. However, they warn that there may be limitations to these relations, such as the mutual mistrust between the U.S. and China in terms of security and military matters.
For China itself, Gill and Huang state that the country should improve the quality of its peacekeepers, expand its contributions to include combat troops, show its leadership capabilities in the DPKO and increase its financial contribution to the program.
