Your Excellency, Under Secretary General Jean-Pierre Lacroix,

Your Excellency, Under Secretary General Atul Khare,

Dear colleagues,

This event, the Second United Nations Chiefs of Police Summit, is taking place at a time when the global security landscape is becoming more complex. The timing is right, making the event highly relevant for better global security governance. China would like to express its appreciation and offer its congratulations on the opening of the Summit.

China attaches great importance, and contributes actively, to peacekeeping operations, and has been doing so all along. At the UN Peacekeeping Summit in September 2015, Chinese President Xi Jinping made solemn commitments, in line with which China has, to date, completed the establishment and training of two standby FPUs with a strength of 330 officers, and has trained over 400 peacekeeping police officers from other countries.

Dear colleagues,

Humanity has one common home. All countries have one common destiny; each country is intricately connected with all the rest. All of us should subscribe to a new security doctrine, i.e. the doctrine of common, comprehensive, cooperative and sustainable security, and work together to build a community of shared future for humankind enjoying universal security. In the area of peacekeeping, China wishes to propose the following:

First, strengthening the capacity of host countries for securing mission areas. Capacity building of host countries should be made an important task of peacekeeping. No peacekeeping mission lasts forever. Host countries cannot rely on external forces to maintain their internal security in the long run. The key is to improve their own policing capabilities. Before deployment, during the operation and upon the closure of the UN mission, the host country should be provided with systematic training and equipment support. The UN and its Member States should prioritise and strengthen preventive diplomacy and, before deploying a mission, send training and other teams to the host country to help them build law enforcement forces, such as riot police. During peacekeeping operations, the police contributing countries should carry out training for local enforcement personnel. After the mission is closed, capacity building and technical support should continue in order to ensure that the host government has the capability to keep its country secure and to ensure the continuity of UN peacekeeping efforts. Last year, with UN authorisation, China trained Liberia’s national riot police unit, with positive results.

Second, supporting the UN in playing a bigger role in peacekeeping and peacebuilding, and supporting Secretary General Mr Antonio Guterres’s effort to reform the UN peace and security architecture. The UN Charter and Hammarskjold’s three principles of UN peacekeeping operations should be strictly upheld, and host countries’ sovereignty and the will of their people respected. Furthermore, we propose regional organisations, such as the AU, be given an effective role to play, since most of the missions are located in Africa.

Third, comprehensively elevating the capabilities of peacekeeping police. The selection criteria should be upheld rigorously to ensure the competence of peacekeeping police. Application of high technology should be enhanced to make PKOs more efficient. The early warning system should be enhanced and peacekeepers be armed with higher-calibre equipment. Discipline and ethics management should be intensified to keep the reputation of the UN PKOs untarnished. Performance evaluation should be strengthened to ensure successful mandate implementation. Moreover, the views voiced by PCCs during the tripartite meetings of the Security Council, the Secretariat and the PCCs should be given due attention.

Dear colleagues,

In the face of new realities and new imperatives, China would like to make the following commitments:

One, we shall invest more in capacity building. We shall actively host UN workshops, develop mobile training teams (or MTTs) in partnership with the UN and give priority to the training programmes in Africa, to meet the target of training 1,000 peacekeeping police officers to high quality standards. China is ready to help African countries, within the UN framework, improve their law enforcement capabilities.

Two, China is ready to provide funding for the next UNCOPS and will help create a mechanism to implement the consensus outcomes of the Summit and translate them into action, for the benefit of global security governance.

Three, China will provide the United Nations with more human resources support. We shall continue to supply senior personnel and junior professionals and train up and supply female officers to peacekeeping missions.

Four, we are happy to share our experience and practice with other countries in terms of discipline and ethics management - how we manage to keep a record of zero discipline violation - so that together we can safeguard the reputation of UN peacekeeping operations.

Our common goal is to work together to make the world a safer place! So let’s do it.

Thank you for your attention.