{"id":33320,"date":"2018-10-30T11:49:16","date_gmt":"2018-10-30T06:19:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blog.forumias.com\/?p=33320"},"modified":"2018-10-30T11:49:16","modified_gmt":"2018-10-30T06:19:16","slug":"the-power-play-in-peacekeeping","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/the-power-play-in-peacekeeping\/","title":{"rendered":"The power play in peacekeeping"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.thehindu.com\/opinion\/op-ed\/the-power-play-in-peacekeeping\/article21420388.ece\"><strong>The power play in peacekeeping<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n<p><strong>Context<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Though Indian troops have led the way, the returns in UN power play have been low. The<\/p>\n<p>contrast with China is stark<\/p>\n<p><strong>No Media Coverage to UN Peacekeeping Operations<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Media coverage of peacekeeping operations is an area with many gaps<\/p>\n<p><strong>Recent Incidence<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Consider for example, an incident last week, where at least 15 peacekeepers and five soldiers in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) were killed and numerous peacekeepers wounded by armed militants in one of the worst attacks on United Nations personnel. A local Islamist extremist group overran the remote base. Most of the dead and wounded are from Tanzania<\/p>\n<p><strong>Questions Raised<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Was there any media coverage in India? It would have been a different story had they been troops from the West<\/p>\n<p><strong>China rising<\/strong><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Amid the buzz around Beijing taking centre stage in world affairs, the import of China\u2019s deployment of its first peacekeeping helicopter unit in the peacekeeping mission in Darfur has been lost sight of<\/li>\n<li>Beijing has become the largest troop contributor among the permanent members of the UN Security Council (UNSC).<\/li>\n<li>China is now the third-largest contributor to the UN\u2019s regular budget and the second-largest contributor to the peacekeeping budget.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><strong>How does this benefits China?<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>In a September 2017 report, the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) says: \u201cChina\u2019s participation in UN operations offers&#8230; a low-cost means of demonstrating their commitment to global stability&#8230; and allay(s) fears about its military and economic strength.\u201d<\/p>\n<p><strong>Not an Easy path for India<\/strong><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>The UN, especially the UNSC, is a blue-blooded political body, notwithstanding its charter of considering all countries as equals<\/li>\n<li>In practice, a nation\u2019s voice is in proportion to what it contributes towards the UN, especially funds \u2014 India\u2019s contribution is only 0.737% when compared to China\u2019s 7.92% and the U.S.\u2019s 22%<\/li>\n<li>Troop contributions to peacekeeping do not get their due in UN power politics<\/li>\n<li>Pivotal posts in UN missions have always been with major fund contributors.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><strong>Veto power<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>The CSIS report states that China has used its veto only 12 times, but two were cast where its economic interests were involved, like in Myanmar and Zimbabwe despite these being low on human rights records.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Vetoes Cast over territorial concerns<\/strong><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>What is more worrisome, however, is that two vetoes were also cast \u201cover concerns over territorial integrity pertaining to Taiwan\u201d<\/li>\n<li>China was against sending UN peacekeepers to Guatemala and Macedonia because they had established diplomatic ties with Taiwan<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><strong>Coercive Actions by China against other nations too<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>When this self-serving act is linked with Beijing\u2019s other recent coercive actions such as against Mongolia due to a Dalai Lama visit, and against Japan when it is said to have halted exports of rare minerals following the arrest of a Chinese trawler captain, the increasing front-lining of China in international affairs via the UN has an ominous ring.<\/p>\n<p><strong>China\u2019s Committments<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><strong>Peace force<\/strong>: In 2015, China committed a standby force of 8,000 peacekeepers and a permanent police squad for UN operations<\/p>\n<p><strong>African Interests<\/strong>: In addition, there is a 10-year $1 billion China-U.N. peace and development fund and $100 million in military assistance to the African Union<\/p>\n<p><strong>Peacekeeping a cover<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Peacekeeping is said to be a cover for China to test its strengths in overseas deployments. The deployment of a People\u2019s Liberation Army Navy submarine off the Africa coast for anti-piracy patrolling is to train its seamen in long-distance operations<\/p>\n<p><strong>Impacting India<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Chinese involvement in peacekeeping, along with its higher funding contributions will put Beijing in the driver\u2019s seat in formulating peacekeeping mandates, thereby affecting India in more ways than one<\/p>\n<p><strong>Concerns for India: Low Return at the UN for its contributions<\/strong><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Is India losing out despite having provided almost 200,000 troops in nearly 50 of the 71 UN peacekeeping missions over the past six decades?<\/li>\n<li>We have also sent scarce aviation assets including Canberra bombers to a UN Mission in Congo in the 1960s and helicopters to Somalia, Sierra Leone and Sudan<\/li>\n<li>The truth is that though our troops have been on the front line of facing danger (168 soldiers lost in UN operations, till May 2017), the returns in UN power play have been low<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><strong>Will this continue?<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>It was perhaps not a troublesome issue until now considering India\u2019s good relations with the other four permanent UNSC members, but will this continue with China rise in the UN, especially with U.S. President Donald Trump\u2019s preoccupation elsewhere? Chinese opposition to India\u2019s candidature for a UNSC seat and its repeated vetos on the Masood Azhar issue are unwelcome indicators<\/p>\n<p><strong>Conclusion<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Peacekeeping missions are the raison d\u2019etre of the UN and India\u2019s generous contributions as far as peacekeeping troops are concerned should be key in its argument to have a greater say in the affairs of the UN. India must demand its pound of flesh.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The power play in peacekeeping Context Though Indian troops have led the way, the returns in UN power play have been low. The contrast with China is stark No Media Coverage to UN Peacekeeping Operations Media coverage of peacekeeping operations is an area with many gaps Recent Incidence Consider for example, an incident last week,&hellip; <a class=\"more-link\" href=\"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/the-power-play-in-peacekeeping\/\">Continue reading <span class=\"screen-reader-text\">The power play in peacekeeping<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":61,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[555],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-33320","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-test-1","entry"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","views":{"total":0,"cached_at":"","cached_date":1704941253},"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33320","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/61"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=33320"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33320\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=33320"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=33320"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=33320"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}