China keeps up UN peacekeeper role
China will continue to offer consistent and comprehensive support to United Nations peacekeeping missions in an effort to save lives and promote world peace, senior Chinese peacekeeping officers said recently before the upcoming International Day of UN Peacekeepers on May 29.
Being an instrument to help conflict-torn nations transition to lasting peace, more than 1 million men and women have served under the UN flag in more than 70 UN peacekeeping operations since the first mission in the Middle East in May 1948.
"Peace is not the absence of conflict, but the ability to cope with conflict by peaceful means," as former US president Ronald Reagan once said, a statement that is relevant this year as the UN celebrates its 70th anniversary of peacekeeping.