| With more than 2,000 deployed personnel, the People's Republic of China contributes more peacekeepers to United Nations peacekeeping operations (UNPKO) than any of the other permanent member states of the UN Security Council, and was ranked 15th overall as of February 2011. China's large commitments to UNPKO are a product of an evolving foreign policy that has increasingly supported participation in multilateral cooperative security efforts. Although China first contributed peacekeepers in 1989, the numbers of blue-helmeted Chinese soldiers, military observers, and civilian police have risen most rapidly since the early 2000s. During this same time period, Beijing has made a concerted effort to expand trade and gain access to foreign sources of strategic natural resources, particularly oil, minerals, and industrial raw materials. This analysis addresses the relationship between this drive for economic development and China's policies towards multilateral security. Specifically, it poses the following question: how do China's economic interests influence its participation in multilateral security efforts, specifically UNPKO? Quantitative analytical methods are utilized to examine the relationship between China's involvement in UNPKO and its national economic interests, represented by aggregated trade totals and imports of strategic natural resources. A significant correlation is found to exist between China's involvement in UNPKO and trade levels at the time of an operation, indicating that economic interests are an important motivating factor in China's decision to deploy peacekeepers. Conversely, the data provide no indication that China's participation in peacekeeping leads to disproportionate growth of trade with nations hosting UNPKO. The results suggest that China, on average, is more likely to participate in UNPKO hosted by nations with which it already maintains a strong trading relationship. Given that China's foreign economic interests and reliance on imported natural resources are expected to grow, China will likely continue to play an active role in future UNPKO. |
