China's pledge to establish an 8,000-strong peacekeeping force will help meet critical gaps in UN peacekeeping, UN under-secretary-general for peacekeeping operations has said.
In a recent email interview with Xinhua, Herve Ladsous said "the announcement of China to establish an 8,000-member standby force is a robust contribution that has the potential to address critical gaps and better prepare our blue helmets to achieve their mandates."
At a peacekeeping summit held in the UN headquarters on Sept. 28, Chinese president Xi Jinping said China will take the lead to set up a permanent peacekeeping police squad and will build a peacekeeping standby force of 8,000 troops.
China is also to actively consider the UN's request of sending more engineering, transportation and medical personnel to join peacekeeping missions, and will train 2,000 foreign peacekeepers and carry out 10 mine-sweeping assistance programs in the next five years, Xi said.
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