Brave death for peace

The terrorist attack that killed one and injured four other Chinese peacekeepers in Mali on Wednesday should be strongly condemned and the perpetrators brought justice.

A total of 17 Chinese peacekeepers have sacrificed their lives since the 1990s when China joined UN peacekeeping missions. Among the five permanent UN Security Council members, China now has the largest peacekeeping team abroad and the expenditure China will undertake for UN peacekeeping missions in the next three years will account for 10.2 percent of the world body's total expense for this purpose, ranking second.

The terrorist attack in Mali did not seem to be targeted at Chinese peacekeepers in particular, but rather at the UN.