ABSTRACT
This chapter introduces the facts and figures regarding China's current active participation in UN peacekeeping. It presents an analytical framework, proposing an examination of China's doctrine through describing its international identities in different historical eras since its return to the UN system in 1971. The chapter discusses China's peacekeeping doctrine before the twenty-first century. It then analyzes China's peacekeeping doctrine in the twenty-first century. Today's China is becoming increasingly active in participating in international affairs regarding peace and security. A state's peacekeeping doctrine consists of a set of policy guidelines and principles that guide and regulate its peacekeeping behavior, as does China's. In the 1980s and 1990s, as China sought to become a normal member of the international community, it began to selectively embrace UN peacekeeping. Finally, the chapter discusses the People's Liberation Army's (PLA's) understanding of peacekeeping. In 1990, the PLA for the first time participated in UN peacekeeping by deploying five military observers to UNTSO.
