Beijing strategy and Lebanon mission
Beijing wants to clinch better ties with the oil-rich Middle East, but it is also pursuing a role of global leadership. Experts say it is favoured in this role because of its non-colonialist and non-aligned past.
Beijing (AsiaNews/Agencies) China will contribute 1,000 men to the peacekeeping force in Lebanon. Premier Wen Jiabao announced this on 18 September during a visit of the Italian premier, Romano Prodi. Analysts believe the move is prompted by economic reasons but also by a desire to reinforce China's role in international affairs.
This is the largest peace force ever dispatched by Beijing, already represented in UNIFIL by 187 soldiers. China will also give 40 million yuan (around five million US dollars) in humanitarian aid to Beirut.
Jean-Pierre Cabestan, a China expert at the National Center for Scientific Research in Paris, said Beijing was working to establish closer ties with the Arab oil-rich world while at the same time maintaining its direct military cooperation "in a politics of equilibrium". In August, Beijing condemned Israeli attacks on Hezbollah positions in Lebanon. The brief conflict also killed a Chinese UN observer.
Yitzhak Shichor, professor of East Asian Studies at Haifa University in Israel, said: "Up until now, Beijing has hesitated to engage more into the affairs of the Mideast, most notably because this means it will have to take sides," but it could thus intervene in a neutral manner.
Milton Liao Wen-chung, a China defence expert with the Council of Advanced Studies in Taipei, said China could also deploy non-military personnel under the UN standard, like medics and technicians. But Liu Jiangyong, a vice-president of Qinghua University's Institute of International Studies, said the decision showed an image change by Beijing, now geared more towards the international arena, crediting the People's Liberation Army as a positive force, revealing "support for the United Nations and its peacekeeping efforts."
Wen's announcement earned the immediate applause of Premier Prodi, who said China's participation was a reflection of its rising international status. In the past, the United Nations had sought to involve China in such operations several times.
In such a role, China is at an advantage compared to the United States and Russia, often considered as invaders, and also compared to other economic powers like Japan, which have a still recent colonial past. On the contrary, Beijing does not have conflicts with other states behind it, and its recent past is not marked by a policy of military colonial expansion (excluding the "domestic" problems of Tibet and Xinjiang).
This allows it to undertake better the role of neutral peacekeeping in ethnic-religious conflicts or those of the colonial sort. China has always been one of the non-aligned countries, revealing its independence in relation to the past division of the world into the Russia-USA blocks.
However, there is no lack of voices expressing concern that China's policy of not interfering in the domestic affairs of other countries may be just formal, a comfortable justification not to see human rights abuses in other states and to conclude profitable economic agreements. Beijing has been using this policy to impose a veto on any serious condemnation or intervention in Sudan to stop the genocide in Darfur while its businesses have important agreements in the country's oil sector. Likewise, Chinese support has been vital for Myanmar's military junta, for Iran's nuclear development and for the oddities of North Korea.
Valerie Niquet, director of the Asian Centre of the French Institute of International Relations, said China only wants to "gain credit as a powerful figure". All agree however, that with the dispatch of troops to Lebanon, China is showing it wants to become more and more involved on the global scene. The country has been participating in peace missions only since 1992. Previously, they were considered to be an instrument of US imperialism. So far, China has sent above all civil personnel on mission, like doctors and engineers, and thus has operated less close to war zones, with less risks of involvement in crossfire.
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