China, Japan, and UN Peacekeeping

This year marks 25years since China and Japan sent their first military contingents on a United Nations peacekeeping mission. In 1992, Beijing and Tokyo’s deployment of engineering units to the UN’s mission in Cambodia was an initial step in East Asia’s peacekeeping engagement. Since then, both countries have become important contributors of so-called “enabler” troops — engineers, logisticians, and medical personnel — to missions in Southeast Asia, the Middle East, and Africa. China in particular has significantly stepped up its engagement over the past 15 years and now ranks among the world’s top 12 contributors of blue helmets.

But the firm commitment of China and Japan to UN peacekeeping is increasingly at odds with trends towards more ambitious UN Security Council mandates, and the growing deployment of peacekeepers into high-risk environments. Both countries have expressed concern that peacekeeping should be based on realistic expectations, and close adherence to core peacekeeping principles. At a time when financial cutbacks are driving reviews of major peacekeeping operations across the globe, and when there is a risk of dwindling commitments by key UN donors, the impact of these trends on Japan’s and China’s respective roles in peacekeeping needs further reflection.

DIIS senior researcher Luke Patey with Adam Day and Sebastian von Einsiedel from the Centre for Policy Research at the United Nations University co-authoured a feature article for The Diplomat exploring China’s and Japan’s future role in UN peacekeeping.

The article is part of an international network programme between the United Nations University and DIIS to explore the role of East Asia in United Nations peacekeeping. Funded by the Danish Ministry of Higher Education and Science, the network strives to strengthen the internationalisation of Danish research with the UNU, a leading global think-tank and postgraduate teaching organisation that serves as a bridge between international academia and the UN system.