中国能如何改进联合国维和？-周波

【文/周波】

世界对维和的需求不断高涨。各种冲突已导致6500万人流离失所，受到影响的人数创下新高。但现状却是，联合国维和项目正不断萎缩，而不是壮大：联合国科特迪瓦特行动于6月结束，利比里亚特派团将于明年结束，其他14个维和项目正被安理会审议。

2017年5月，联合国南苏丹特派团中的中国维和人员在南苏丹朱巴执行任务

中国可以提供帮助。中国是联合国安理会五个常任理事国中派遣维和军事人员最多的国家,也是联合国维和项目第二大资金贡献国。2015年9月，中国国家主席习近平在联合国发表讲话，承诺将增加中国在维和方面所做努力。此后，中国进一步加强了在联合国维和方面的工作。中国在已经培训1100名外国维和人员的基础上，还计划于2020年前再培训900名维和人员。今年8月，首个中国直升机分队抵达苏丹西部饱受战乱的达尔富尔地区。9月，8000名中国维和待命部队完成联合国注册登记，以备需要的时候征用，其中850名人员将加入联合国“先锋旅”——危机中可迅速派遣至冲突地区的快速反应部队。

中国可以通过向联合国提供高质量设备和人员，使维和的任务授权更具操作性，协助培训维和部队和维护派遣维和部队国家使用的中国制造设备等方式改进联合国维和。同时，中国与美国合作，提升部分非洲国家维和能力，也有利于改善中美关系，为非洲稳定做出贡献。

2015年9月，在黎巴嫩—以色列边境附近的联合国维和人员

为什么中国应该加强维和？

中国有充分的理由提升其维和承诺。支持全球治理可提供中国最需要的东西：和平崛起的负责任的国家形象。此外，联合国维和的两大指导原则：公正以及“除自卫和保卫授权任务之外,不得使用武力”与中国外交政策和军事思想相吻合。前者符合中国不干涉他国内政的承诺，后者体现了中国军事家孙子“不战而屈人之兵”的原理。中国资源丰富，全球稳定事关其重大利益，有潜力成为维和领袖。

鉴于美国有可能缩减其在联合国发挥的作用，中国的承诺在未来将尤为重要。美国总统特朗普提出美国减少10亿美元维和缴款的要求，将对联合国带来冲击。这并不意味着中国将取代美国成为联合国最大的捐款国。但通过进一步支持维和，中国可以带来新气象。

联合国维和不仅要提升数量，更应提高质量，才能确保中国加强维和的努力行之有效。首先，中国可以源源不断地提供对维和部队取得成功具有重要作用的关键部队如特种部队、工程、运输、通讯、航空等部队。可以提供更多的女性维和人员，她们更容易与女性平民打交道，在穆斯林社区尤为如此。到目前为止，约有800名中国女性参与联合国维和任务，60名外国女性维和人员在中国受训。

中国和其他国家政府应尽量避免维和部队执行所谓“圣诞树授权”，或联合国无法实现的过于庞杂的责任清单。1948年，联合国维和行动开始的时候，维和人员唯一的任务就是维持以色列及其阿拉伯邻国之间的停火。此后，维和人员承担的责任越来越多。例如，联合国中非共和国特派团向维和人员分派了11种不同的任务，包括保护平民、为人道主义援助提供协助乃至支持公正和法治。联合国应精简如此庞杂的授权，更应加强情报和后勤行动以支持维和人员。这样才能避免2016年联合国部队在马里和南苏丹遭受的伤亡，当时有三名中国维和人员身亡。

改善联合国维和行动要求不仅与联合国这个国际组织合作，还要与其他国家共同努力。许多参与维和行动的发展中国家向中国购买军事装备，部分原因是这比其他国家制造的同类产品便宜。有一些办法可以使这一过程更加顺畅。例如，2007年，尼泊尔向中国购买多辆装甲车。尼泊尔军方没有将装甲车运回本国，而是将装甲车直接送至戈兰高地，供一批驻扎在当地的尼泊尔维和人员使用，运费由联合国支付。这种安排可以降低向维和人员运送设备的费用。

2010年12月，联合国驻科特迪瓦阿比让部队

培训和维护

中国大部分对外军事援助流向非洲，而非洲也是联合国大部分维和部队执行任务的地方。如果非洲国家同意的话，中国可将其军事援助项目更多的投入到非洲大陆上的维和行动。2008年中国向索马里的布隆迪和乌干达维和人员提供军事援助就开了一个好头。今年八月在东京举行的一个会议上，中国官员提出在非洲设立基地供中国培训更多非洲维和人员的可能性，中国可以独自实施或与派遣维和部队的非洲国家合作实施该项目。这将比在中国培训非洲维和人员费用更低。中国也可帮助维修非洲维和人员使用的中国制设备。

执行非洲联盟独立的维和任务的部队通常情况下人员不足，缺乏培训，缺少资源。自2010年以来，中国一直向非盟行动提供帮助。2015年，中国承诺向非盟提供1亿美元以建立预备部队，提高危机应对能力。中国正与非盟合作使用这笔援助帮助非盟维和人员更好地提高部队输送、战场生存能力。下一步，中国应加入欧盟和美国各自提升非洲国家维和能力的努力。在马里，中国在联合国维和部队的指挥官们与欧盟马里部队培训项目指挥官们已经实现定期会晤。一些欧洲官员建议，双方现在可以探讨欧盟战斗部队（欧盟各成员国派遣的以营为单位的建制部队）与中国维和待命部队之间的合作。例如，双方部队可以应联合国紧急通知进行派遣。

中美关系有时被定义为竞争性关系，但这种竞争性在非洲并不突出，特别是在军事领域。两国加强维和合作不仅有利于维护非洲大陆的稳定，还可以同时改善世界上最重要的双边关系。在2016年中国杭州举办G20领导人峰会以及特朗普总统近期访华期间，两国均做出上述承诺。中美开展此类合作有利于世界和平，也让更多人相信，尽管中美关系错综复杂，但两国并不敌对。如果北京和华盛顿共同支持非洲国家的维和人员，向他们提供培训和设备，将会实现非洲、美国和中国的三赢。

（本文转自微信公众号“清华大学战略与安全研究中心”，英文原文于2017年11月15日首发于美国“外交事务”网站，翻页查看原文）

How China Can Improve UN Peacekeeping

The world’s need for peacekeeping has never been higher. Conflicts have displaced more than 65 million people and are affecting the lives of a record number of others. Yet today, the United Nations’ peacekeeping programs are shrinking, rather than expanding: its peacekeeping mission in Cote d’Ivoire ended in June, its mission in Liberia will end next year, and its 14 other peacekeeping programs are under review by the UN Security Council.

China can help. It is the biggest contributor of peacekeeping troops among the five permanent members of the UN Security Council and the second-biggest financial contributor to the UN’s peacekeeping programs. Since September 2015, when Chinese President Xi Jinping pledged to increase China’s peacekeeping efforts in a speech at the UN, it has stepped up further. Some 1,100 foreign peacekeepers have already been trained in Beijing, and China plans to train 900 more by 2020. This August, the first contingent of Chinese helicopters arrived in Darfur, a war-torn region in western Sudan. And in September, China registered a peacekeeping standby force of 8,000 troops that the UN can draw on in times of need. Eight hundred fifty of those soldiers will join the UN’s so-called Vanguard Brigade—a rapid-response group that will quickly deploy to conflict zones during crises. (In my role in China’s Ministry of National Defense, I manage the PLA’s multilateral cooperation programs, including those related to peacekeeping.)

By providing the UN with high-quality equipment and manpower, working to make peacekeepers’ mandates more achievable, and helping to train the forces and maintain some of the Chinese-made equipment of troop-contributing countries, China could do more to improve UN peacekeeping. Cooperating with the United States to develop the peacekeeping capacities of some African states, meanwhile, would help improve the Chinese-U.S. relationship and contribute to Africa’s stability.

WHY CHINA SHOULD STEP UP

China has good reason to beef up its peacekeeping commitments. Supporting global governance provides what the country needs most: an image as a responsible nation on a peaceful rise. What is more, two of peacekeeping’s guiding principles—impartiality and the “non-use of force except in self-defense and defense of mandate,” as the UN puts it—resonate with China’s foreign policy and military ethos. Whereas the former aligns with China’s commitment to avoid interfering in the domestic affairs of other states, the latter recalls the classical Chinese strategist Sun Tzu’s axiom that it is best to subdue one’s adversaries without violence. And thanks to its deep resources and major interests in global stability, China has the potential to become a peacekeeping leader.

Because the United States seems likely to scale back its own role at the UN, China’s commitments will be especially important in the years ahead. U.S. President Donald Trump’s call for a $1 billion cut to the United States’ peacekeeping contributions would deal a blow to the world body. That does not mean that China will replace the United States as the UN’s biggest donor. But by supporting peacekeeping further, Beijing can make a difference.

Doing so effectively requires improving not just the quantity but also the quality of UN peacekeeping. First, China could become a consistent source of so-called enabling units—the special forces, engineering, transport, communications, and aviation troops that are essential to peacekeepers’ success. It could also provide more female peacekeepers, who tend to have an easier time working with female civilians, especially in Muslim communities. So far, around 800 Chinese women have served on UN peacekeeping missions, and 60 foreign female peacekeepers have been trained in China.

China and other governments should also try to move peacekeeping missions away from so-called Christmas-tree mandates, or lists of responsibilities that are so extensive that the UN has trouble meeting them. When UN peacekeeping began in 1948, peacekeepers’ only job was to observe a ceasefire between Israel and its Arab neighbors. Since then, the demands on peacekeepers have grown. The UN’s mission in the Central African Republic, for instance, tasks peacekeepers with 11 different responsibilities, from protecting civilians and facilitating humanitarian assistance to supporting justice and the rule of law. The UN should streamline those oversized mandates. It should also do more to improve the intelligence and logistical operations it carries out to support peacekeepers. This could help prevent losses like those suffered by UN troops in Mali and South Sudan in 2016, when three Chinese peacekeepers were killed.

Improving UN peacekeeping requires working not just with the world body but also with other countries. Many of the developing states that are involved in peacekeeping buy Chinese military equipment, partly because it tends to be cheaper than similar products made elsewhere. There are a few ways that this process could become smoother. In 2007, for example, Nepal bought a number of Chinese armored personnel carriers. Instead of shipping them to Nepal, the Nepalese military sent them directly to the Golan Heights, where a number of Nepalese peacekeepers are based; the UN paid for the shipping costs. These types of arrangements can make delivering equipment to peacekeepers cheaper.

TRAIN AND MAINTAIN

Much of China’s military assistance goes to Africa, which is also the site of most of the UN’s peacekeeping missions. If African states agree, China could devote more of its own military assistance programs to peacekeeping on the continent. Its delivery of military assistance in support of Burundian and Ugandan peacekeepers in Somalia in 2008 set a good precedent. At a conference in Tokyo in August, Chinese officials raised the possibility of setting up a facility in Africa where China could train more African peacekeepers, either on its own or together with troop-contributing African governments. This would be cheaper than training African peacekeepers in China. Beijing could also help maintain African peacekeepers’ Chinese-made equipment.

As for the African Union, its independent peacekeeping missions tend to be undermanned, undertrained, and under-resourced. Since 2010, China has supported the AU’s efforts; in 2015, it pledged to give the AU $100 million to help it establish a standby force and to improve its ability to respond to crises. China and the AU are working together to use that assistance to help AU peacekeepers get better at projecting force and surviving in the field. Next, China should join the European Union and the United States in their own efforts to improve the peacekeeping capacities of African states. In Mali, Chinese commanders supporting the UN’s peacekeeping mission and EU commanders working on their own training program for Malian troops already meet regularly. They could now explore cooperation between EU Battlegroups (battalion-sized forces to which various EU countries contribute) and the Chinese peacekeeping standby force, as some European officials have suggested. Troops from both forces, for instance, could deploy on short notice in response to UN requests.

The Chinese-U.S. relationship is sometimes characterized by competition, but that is less the case in Africa, especially when it comes to military issues. More collaboration between the two countries on peacekeeping would contribute to stability on the continent, improving the world’s most important bilateral relationship at the same time. At the G-20 Summit in Hangzhou in 2016 and during Trump’s recent visit to China, the two countries pledged to achieve just that. Such Chinese-U.S. cooperation could make the world less dangerous and convince more people that Chinese-U.S. relations, however complicated, are not hostile. If Beijing and Washington jointly support peacekeepers in African states—for example, by assisting them with training and equipment—Africans, Americans, and Chinese would all win.