Madam President, 

Over the years, MONUSCO has been actively fulfilling its mandate, and has made important contributions to the maintenance of regional peace and stability. China highly appreciates this. At present, the security situation in eastern DRC remains dire, with armed groups occupying vast areas and seriously threatening the lives and property of the population. Under the current circumstances, the mandate renewal of MONUSCO is conducive to regional peace and stability and consistent with the expectations of the DRC Government. Therefore, China voted in favor of the draft resolution. 

At the same time, I wish to emphasize that there is still room for reform and improvement in UN PKOs in Africa. UN missions in countries such as the DRC, Mali, South Sudan, and the CAR have been too broad and all-encompassing in their mandates, spreading resources too thin to guarantee fulfillment of core mandates. Some mandates have caused discontent among the populations of the countries concerned, and affected the safety of peacekeepers. China supports conducting comprehensive reviews of the mandates of PKOs in Africa and returning the tasks beyond capacity to the governments and the UN country teams in the countries concerned. Regarding MONUSCO, its core tasks consist of supporting the peace process, protecting civilians, and maintaining security and stability. Tasks such as human rights monitoring and sanctions monitoring seriously distract the attention and dilute the resources of MONUSCO. These tasks duplicate and overlap with other UN monitoring mechanisms. China hopes that going forward, the Security Council will, in light of how the situations evolve, streamline and adjust the relevant mandates.

The other resolution just adopted by the Council completely lifts the notification requirement for the import of arms by the DRC Government. China welcomes this. In recent years, China, together with African countries, has been calling for lifting or adjusting the sanctions measures against African countries. We are delighted to see that at the critical juncture when the DRC Government is combating armed groups and trying to maintain national security, the Security Council responded positively to the demands of the DRC, and adopted the resolution. This is of great immediate relevance for stepping up capacity building for the security forces of the DRC and effectively maintaining regional peace and stability.

We expect the Council to remain united on sanctions-related issues and, in light of latest developments, adjust and remove in a timely manner the arms embargo measures against African countries, such as Sudan, South Sudan, and the CAR, so as to create conditions for the governments of these countries to enhance their security capabilities.

Thank you, Madam President.