Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-7cvxr Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-22T16:27:11.184Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

China's Shifting Attitude towards United Nations Peacekeeping Operations

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  05 September 2008

Abstract

While China has been portrayed as a reluctant supporter of UN peacekeeping in the past, it has voted in favour of every newly established UN peacekeeping operation since the beginning of the new millennium. Previous studies of China's behaviour in UN peacekeeping explained this phenomenon primarily with recent shifts in its foreign and security policy rather than with changes in UN peacekeeping itself. This article analyses China's voting behaviour in the UN Security Council on peacekeeping resolutions in the context of the evolving concepts of UN peacekeeping. It argues that China's recent enthusiasm for these missions is the result of two developments. On the one hand, Beijing was able to reinterpret its understanding of UN peacekeeping after its experience in the 1990s, especially with regard to the use of force; while on the other hand, the way UN peacekeeping missions are conducted was reformed after the Brahimi Report in 2000, which made UN peacekeeping more agreeable to the China.

Type
Research Article
Copyright
Copyright © The China Quarterly 2008

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)