Description
The year of 2021 marks the 50th anniversary of the People’s Republic of China (PRC) entrance to the United Nations (UN). In this period, China’s role in the organization has greatly evolved from a bystander to an active actor. This change, however, is rather recent: in 2015, while addressing the UN General Assembly, Xi Jinping stated that China was ready to perform the role of a responsible power and share the burden of providing public goods. He pledged to reinforce Chinese commitment to the UN by reinforcing funding and engaging more actively in negotiations.
This article aims to provide an overview of Chinese participation in the UN in the last 50 years and identify how the country has been taking a leadership role since it publicized its renewed engagement. We are going to focus on one of the UN pillars in which China has been most reluctant in leading: international security. For that, we will analyse PRC’s participation in the UN Peace Operations, which bears the main responsibility in maintaining international peace and security. Our goal is to identify some the main trends of this participation, highlighting the country’s priorities, strategies and policies while addressing these operations in the UN Security Council. Also, we intend to reflect whether China’s growing engagement can impact on the practices of peacekeeping, especially in the framework of Liberal Peace.
