How Africa and China May Shape UN Peacekeeping Beyond the Liberal International Order

A flagship activity of the liberal international order (LIO) in the post-Cold War era, characterized by globalization, liberal norms and western leadership, UN peacekeeping today finds itself at a crossroads.

While Western states’ diminished support for LIO UN peacekeeping has left it increasingly open to challenge, significant changes are only likely if a strong group of states coalesces around an alternative model of UN peacekeeping, according to  KATHARINA P. COLEMAN and BRIAN L. JOB.

Writing in the journal International Affairs, they highlight African actors and China as well positioned to play pivotal roles in such a coalition. African states, who host the preponderance of UN missions and furnish almost half of the UN’s uniformed peacekeepers, support globalized UN peacekeeping, show relatively weak support for the most liberal peacebuilding principles and assert the need for African-led solutions to continental crises.

China’s influence reflects its P5 status, financial and personnel contributions to UN peacekeeping and engagement with regional actors, notably in Africa. Aspiring to global leadership and a ‘new world order’, China endorses globalized UN peacekeeping but proposes a non-liberal (and non-western led) notion of ‘developmental peace’ to guide it.

“Chinese and African strategic goals are not identical, but there are important complementarities in their respective positions,” the authors state in their article titled ‘How Africa and China may shape UN peacekeeping beyond the liberal international order’.

China challenges liberal democratic peacebuilding, which has few committed champions in Africa. African actors embrace robust protection, stabilization and counterterrorism activities, which China is willing to support within a ‘developmental peace’ framework, as long as state sovereignty is respected—priorities many African actors share.

China and African actors share common interests in curtailing western dominance over UN peacekeeping decisions. African actors seek greater influence in peacekeeping decisions regarding Africa; China supports greater regional ownership as part of its own vision of an international order characterized by greater Chinese leadership within and beyond the UN.

The compatibility of Chinese and African objectives presages a significant challenge to LIO UN peacekeeping, especially given that other UN actors have also supported elements of their proposed reforms, including greater regional consultation (endorsed by the UN Secretariat) and a shift to stabilization (whose supporters include some western states).

Whether a post-LIO version of UN peacekeeping emerges will nonetheless depend on the coherence and skill of both the actors advocating it and those seeking instead to reconsolidate LIO UN peacekeeping. Strikingly, however, the globalization of UN peacekeeping is not at stake: China and African actors endorse globalized UN peace operations as essential complements to regional peacekeeping.

“The challenge they pose is thus not one of deglobalization, but one that contests the nature and leadership of globalized institutions.”

Katharina P Coleman, Brian L Job, How Africa and China may shape UN peacekeeping beyond the liberal international order, International Affairs, Volume 97, Issue 5, September 2021, Pages 1451–1468, https://doi.org/10.1093/ia/iiab113