Zhou Qi
China

Though being a later participant in the peacekeeping operations of the UN, China has made an increasing contribution since it changed its position in 1988, which has been fully recognized by the UN and the international community. This article aims to explore and analyze China's stance on the peacekeeping operations of the UN, its changes and the causes behind over the 60 years.

I. International background of China's changing its attitude towards the peacekeeping operation of UN

In the 1990s, after the end of the Cold War, international relations were no longer characterized by the division and competition in spheres of influence between two superpowers, so that some problems which had been neglected among the Cold War, such as terrorism, arms control, drug trafficking, immigration and human rights issues, had become increasingly exposed and are now the main topics in international relations.

Of particular note is the major change in international human rights politics during post-Cold War, some obvious limits in the past, such as the boundaries between political crisis and the humanitarian crisis and the boundaries between domestic political unrest and threats to international peace, had become blurred.

The end of the Cold War also unleashed negative tendencies which had previously been suppressed, such as extreme nationalism and religious extremism. But the strife they caused between different ethnic and sectarian, and even the ethnic cleansing, had become a new and serious human rights issue.

The frequent occurrence of such a war led to a remarkable feature of world politics after 1989 - international intervention in armed conflict and humanitarian crisis sharply increased, the UN peacekeeping operations had become more and more intertwined with controversial international humanitarian intervention.  

Accordingly, it was thus created a "second-generation peacekeeping activities." "The first generation of peacekeeping activities" started with sending "UN Truce Supervision Organization" to the Middle East in 1948. The second generation of peacekeeping activities began in the end of the Cold War. The difference in objectives and features of the two generations of peacekeeping activities was that the first generation of peacekeeping activities was military in nature, including monitoring, supervision, confirming the cease-fire and achieving the initial peace agreement. These traditional peacekeeping activities were usually not directly involved in the political process of conflict resolution. However, the nature of the second generation peacekeeping activities, started after the Cold War, has changed. The peacekeeping mission expanded to include traditional peacekeeping, but also the nation-building and humanitarian relief, which included supervision or elections of the organization, assist in disarmament, demobilization and arms control, assist in the implementation of the Constitution or judicial reform, restructuring and reforming of the security sector, participating in administration, providing humanitarian assistance, and so on.