Cautious moves: China's policy leadership on peacekeeping

China is a key node in the UN peacekeeping regime; simultaneously, a UN Security Council permanent member setting political guidance; the second largest peacekeeping budget funder, and the largest troop contributor amongst its permanent peers, for example. This paper explores PRC engagement in Action for Peacekeeping (A4P) processes, which China uses to advance its long-standing normative wariness over ‘negative consequences’ of the use of force in peacekeeping. A4P further legitimizes China’s concerns about the use military force to resolve issues of global security governance. Peacekeeping fatalities is one A4P area that China exhibits policy leadership. Drawing from Chinese-language authoritative and semi-authoritative sources, this paper explores why China – a state that has only recently fielded combat troops in its three-decades of troop deployment – focuses on peacekeeper fatalities. Process-tracing highlights that concerns over PRC troops in the field and interest in showing policy leadership drives China’s focus.