Description
China’s emerging roles in peacebuilding have sparked debate among scholars and practitioners both within and outside China. Scholars have contributed to a body of theoretical and empirical analysis to identify, describe, and assess the motivation, substance, and implication of Chinese peacebuilding. However, the existing literature mainly treats China as monolithic, with little attention to how Chinese peacebuilding is implemented in practice. Based on more than 50 semi-structured interviews with scholars, officials, business, and civil society organizations, this paper analyses how ‘Chinese peace’ is translated and implemented by various actors with competing interests in three pillars of Chinese peace and conflict engagement: infrastructure-led economic development, political mediation and capability building. It questions whether various Chinese actors implement a particular Chinese approach to peacebuilding, provides evidence-based analysis of why and how China has been pulled into playing a growing peacebuilding role, and assesses the varying impacts of Chinese peace activities on peace and security in Myanmar. This analysis contributes to debates on China’s peacebuilding approach in the context of China’s rise and its potential challenge to existing liberal norms and practices.
