China has increasingly engaged in international peace efforts, shifting from a non-interference policy to actively participating in conflict management due to threats to its investments, particularly those related to the Belt and Road Initiative. This involvement aims to demonstrate China as a responsible global power.

China has played an increasing role in international peacebuilding efforts, including political mediation, peacekeeping, and conflict management in war-affected states like Myanmar, South Sudan, and Afghanistan. Historically, China believed that adhering to non-interference in the affairs of other states was most conducive to achieving its national interests. However, as multiple conflicts, over time, have come to increasingly pose threats to its investments, especially in locations along the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), Beijing has become more interested in ensuring regional stability, as well as participating in conflict prevention in many war-affected states.

China’s growing role in peace and conflict affairs are also fuelled by its reputational concerns, and one key charge of the government has been to demonstrate that China is a responsible power that has a constructive role in solving global problems. Top officials in Beijing and commentators frequently point to China’s contribution to peacekeeping, political mediation, and humanitarian assistance as evidence that China contributes to global peace and security.

Alongside these efforts, there is a Chinese peace discourse that explicitly links economic development with peace and security. The most recent example is Xi Jinping’s three initiatives—Global Development Initiative, Global Security Initiative, and Global Civilization Initiative—which present the Chinese approach to promoting peace and stability through “economic development” and “building a community with a shared future for mankind.”

Chinese rhetoric explicitly links infrastructure building, economic growth, and peace and development with the Belt and Road Initiative. This conglomeration of ideas and policy is often emphasised collectively as a “road to peace” and a “road to prosperity (development).” In return, stability is also the backbone for economic development. Exemplary of this position is Deng Xiaoping’s famous saying that “it is essential to have a stable political environment. Without that, nothing can be accomplished.” Moreover, Chinese official discourse has promoted a distinctively Chinese approach to addressing hot spot issues, respecting, for instance, state sovereignty, seeking political settlement in conflict, and resolving differences and disputes through dialogue and consultation. As demonstrated by the Global Security Initiative Concept Paper, “China stayed committed to peacefully resolving differences and disputes between countries through dialogue and consultation…China was exploring approaches to solve the hot issues with Chinese characteristics.”

Notably, during the Xi Jinping era national security has been a key paradigm. The concept of comprehensive national security, officially introduced in 2014 and comprises multiple security arenas, permeates all aspects of domestic governance to protect national security and enhance the party’s legitimacy.

While a Chinese peace discourse exists, Beijing has not come up with a clearly formulated Chinese peacebuilding policy. There is no clear peace plan or grand peace strategy from Beijing to systematically promote its notion of peace and security on the ground. In practice, different “Chinese peace” initiatives operate separately and independently, such as peacekeeping under the People’s Liberation Army (PLA), political mediation under the Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) initiatives by Chinese companies, and the Belt and Road Initiative undertaken by almost all Chinese agencies.

More importantly, Chinese actors’ activities at times, if not often, contradict Chinese official discourse that China’s engagement contributes to peace and development. Extensive media reports and scholarly work document that many Chinese economic agents and activities are profit-seeking, without careful consideration to local contexts and how China’s activities are implicated therein. One example is China’s economic engagement in Myanmar in which Chinese subnational actors’ behaviors, in some cases, contradicts official discourse and undermines Beijing’s foreign policy objectives in the country. China Power Investment Corporation’s profit-seeking activities in the Myitsone Dam Project, for instance, has eroded China and Myanmar’s regulations over investment, which was one of the important factors leading to the deterioration of Sino-Myanmar relations during the Thein Sein government.

Meanwhile, private enterprises in the Opium Replacement Program recklessly expanded their investments in the Shan and Kashin states, negatively impacting the local community. This outcome was in contrast with Beijing’s initial rationale that sought to address the sources of drugs, and transform illicit economies into alternative development in Myanmar and Laos. Therefore, in many cases, Chinese actors’ have ignored official discourse, which has often challenged the discourse that Chinese economic development has led to peace, stability, and wellbeing in war-affected states. In this sense, while Chinese peace in principle does prioritise different issues—highlighting economic development, respect for state sovereignty, and stability—in practice a more complex picture often interweaves with the diversity of Chinese actors that engage in “Chinese peace” activities, posing questions about whether central authorities can direct and coordinate peace outcomes as official Chinese discourse suggests.

Recently, building on the legacy of previous leaders, Xi has driven substantial institutional changes within the Chinese party-state in the form of new laws and regulations. For example, David Lampton notes that the National Security Commission, established in January 2014, helps better coordinate a very fragmented bureaucracy and advances Xi Jinping’s personal power. In the foreign policy domain, Xi  centralised authority by replacing the Central Foreign Affairs Leadership Small Group with the Central Foreign Affairs Commission in 2018, and has, since, convened foreign affairs work conferences much more often than his predecessors, setting a more proactive role for Chinese foreign policy.

Nevertheless, the recentralisation of power and party authority over subnational actors does not necessarily mean Chinese actors’ have greater awareness of, or commitment to, peacebuilding, and a better mechanism within the Chinese state to reflect on and address conflict risks arising from business and interaction with local actors is still required. This problem is linked to a much broader shortcoming in the Chinese context, wherein topics and discussions related to peacebuilding or even conflicts remains limited and sensitive (with the exception of discussions around the UN). The unwillingness of Chinese foreign policy actors to critically examine the discrepancies between “Chinese peace” rhetoric and practice therefore poses the questions of whether an official Chinese peacebuilding policy could emerge or the extent to which central authorities can adapt a conscious and consistent peace approach in overseas engagement.

Dr Xuwan Ouyang is a researcher from the Asia Pacific Centre for the Responsibility to Protect in the School of Political Science and International Studies at The University of Queensland. She obtained PhD in Peace and Conflict Studies from University of Queensland in July 2024. Her research focuses on Chinese foreign policy in relation to peacebuilding, humanitarian emergency response, and mass atrocity prevention in the Asia Pacific region.

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