Sending Talent to International Organizations: A Case study of China

The manuscript explores a recent development of China’s efforts as a peacekeeping policy leader. China is a key node in the UN peacekeeping regime; simultaneously, a UN Security Council permanent member setting political guidance; the second largest peacekeeping budget funder, and the largest troop contributor amongst its permanent peers, for example. However, for all its contributions, China offers comparatively little in terms of peacekeeping policy design. One area that China is emerging as a policy leader is on peacekeeper safety and security. This paper explores why China – a state that has only recently fielded combat troops in its three-decades of troop deployment – focuses on peacekeeper fatalities. The manuscript argues that China’s combat peacekeeper fatalities due to ‘malicious acts’ are a catalyst for PRC policy leadership on peacekeeper safety and security. Drawing from Chinese-language authoritative and semi-authoritative sources, I find that China’s approach to addressing peacekeeper safety and security has three trends. First, China actively seeks to manage accident and illness-related fatalities with a top-down, state-led, technical approach of better training and equipping of detachments. Second, China sees the host state as responsible for ensuring peacekeeper safety and security. Third, China offers less comment on the ‘more dangerous’ environment or the use force, though China is critical of overly-expansive mandates and the robust use of force.