ABSTRACT
This chapter traces the evolution of Beijing’s UN peacekeeping policy discourse. The discourse analysis is conducted by tracing Chinese adaptation to foreign policy crisis key events and examining whether Beijing rearticulated or readjusted its articulation of identity in terms of the two basic discourses. A timeline of key foreign policy events is identified. In each case, the two basic discourses have been used to analyse the often reluctant shifts in Chinese policy regarding UNPKOs. On the one hand, a discourse of Third World solidarity has strongly motivated China to protect the principle of sovereignty and to resist any encroachment of this principle through interventionist developments. On the other hand, as is the cases of the First Gulf War and Darfur, China has had to adapt to the counter-discourse that it was a great power and, therefore, could not stand aloof from the situations.
