China Surprises U.N. With $100 Million
and Thousands of Troops for Peacekeeping

In one of the more surprising announcements during his visit to the United States, President Xi Jinping of China announced on Monday during his speech to the United Nations General Assembly that his country would offer more money and more troops to aid United Nations peacekeeping efforts.

China, he said, planned to set up a United Nations permanent peacekeeping force of 8,000 troops and would provide $100 million to the African Union to create an immediate response unit capable of responding to emergencies.

In addition to the peacekeeping pledge, Mr. Xi promised a $1 billion donation to the United Nations for a “peace and development fund.”

All this amounted to an effort to respond to calls from the United States and others in the West that as the world’s second largest economy, China needed to shoulder more responsibilities at the United Nations.

Mr. Xi appearance at the United Nations was his first since he assumed power in 2012. He seemed anxious to make a splash and show that China would rise to the occasion. Next year, China will assume the leadership of the G-20, the group of the world’s 20 major economies.

China has always been proud of its contributions to United Nations peacekeeping operations. Of the four other world powers on the Security Council, China has deployed the most troops to peacekeeping operations.

Yet, the number of Chinese forces is small when compared with other big contributing countries like Bangladesh and Pakistan, given China’s large defense budget.

At a special summit on peacekeeping convened by President Obama on Monday afternoon, Mr. Xi said China would supplement the big-ticket items he had outlined earlier in the day with a helicopter squad for peacekeeping operations in Africa. China, he added, would also train 5,000 peacekeepers from other countries over the next five years.

China’s decision to commit 8,000 police officers was a significant contribution, said Bruce Jones, vice president for foreign policy at the Brookings Institution and an expert on peacekeeping.

“Police is one of the most glaring gaps in the United Nations peacekeeping operations,” he said. “This is an important step in creating a dedicated reserve capacity.”

In April, as a precursor to Mr. Xi’s announcement, China dispatched an infantry battalion of 700 soldiers to South Sudan to protect civilians, United Nations employees and humanitarian workers as part of the peacekeeping force there.

China is the biggest investor in South Sudan’s oil fields, where production has slowed because of the fighting.

Together with the United States, China has tried to play a mediating role in that conflict, and Mr. Xi told the heads of state at the General Assembly that peacekeeping alone would not solve Africa’s wars.

Diplomacy and national reconciliation, he said, had to accompany the newly strengthened peacekeeping forces.