Peace by piece: China’s policy leadership on peacekeeping fatalities

ABSTRACT How do states respond to peacekeeper fatalities? Peacekeeper fatalities incur costs for contributing states, leading to recalculations of whether voluntary troop deployments generate benefits. Yet it remains unclear how states with non-democratic regime types respond to peacekeeping troop fatalities, whether the ensuing foreign policy decision rests on tactical decisions to continue troop contributions to the mission, and if states affix the same costs to every peacekeeper fatality regardless of how the fatality occurs. This article builds upon existing studies with a detailed case study of China, a non-Western, non-liberal UN troop contributor. China only recently experienced peacekeeper fatalities by malicious acts, which prompted China to become an emerging policy leader regarding peacekeeper safety and security. China’s policy response highlights discomfort about accepting higher levels of danger as a given for UN peacekeeping, with implications for the debate on the robust use of force and China’s approach to international institutions.