by Steven C. Y. Kuo
Abstract: The steady rise in Chinese participation in peace operations in Africa is a significant development in the post-Cold War collective security architecture. An aspect of China’s rise and its challenge to the liberal global order is its contribution to post-conflict peacekeeping, peacebuilding, and peace-making in Africa, areas that have been dominated by the West. The purpose of this article is to bring together literatures that do not usually speak to one another: Chinese discourses on peacebuilding and the debate on the liberal peace in Africa. The subject of this article is the emerging “Chinese peace” discourse. By examining the “Chinese peace” both its normative content and its on-the-ground participation in a comprehensive liberal peace project as a part of the United Nations Mission in Liberia (UNMIL) this article begins to highlight differences, identify tensions, and recognize complementarities between the dominant liberal and the emergent Chinese approach to peacebuilding.
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