The 92B Wheel-Type IFV of the Chinese peacekeeping infantry battalion: A 6x6 armored amphibious fighting vehicle, it is 7.1 meters long, 2.9 meters high, weighs 17 tonnes, and reaches up to 85 km/h on road and 9 km/h in water.
The last echelon of the first Chinese peacekeeping infantry battalion left for South Sudan by a UN-chartered plane on April 7, 2015. Before this, the advanced echelon of the Chinese peacekeeping infantry battalion had arrived at its mission area in South Sudan in late February and finished deployment.
This year marks the 25th anniversary of China's participation in the peacekeeping missions of the United Nations. The first Chinese peacekeeping infantry battalion to South Sudan this year, not only plays a positive role in maintaining regional peace, but also is an important milestone for the Chinese peacekeeping forces in the past 25 years, raising wide concerns.
What are the true features of this infantry battalion? In what ways is it different from other Chinese peacekeeping forces? We may interpret it from four aspects.
It is a peacekeeping troop with defensive combat capability
The Chinese People's Liberation Army (PLA) first sent three types of support forces for peacekeeping, namely engineer troops, transportation troops and medical troops, in the past 20-plus years.
But at the end of 2013, China sent a 170-member peacekeeping guard detachment to the Mali mission area in West Africa at the request of the United Nations. The guard detachment, mainly made up of infantries, is responsible for the security and defense of a UN theater headquarters in Gao, an east city in Mali.
According to the classification of the UN peacekeeping forces, the Chinese peacekeeping infantry battalion to South Sudan is regarded as a "security force" like the Chinese peacekeeping guard detachment in Mali, but in fact, the function it takes on is no longer limited to the "guard duty".
Simply put, this 700-person Chinese peacekeeping infantry battalion has the "active defense" capability in addition to its passive guard duty at the barracks. Or it can be said that the peacekeeping infantry battalion is a true combat force.
Sending the infantry battalion to South Sudan means that the tasks of China's peacekeeping forces will not be limited to traditional support tasks.
It must be made clear that even if the Chinese peacekeepers have the combat capability, it does not mean that they may be directly involved in any local armed conflicts.
Instead, they must protect local people and people from other countries who conduct peace activities, humanitarian aids and economic construction in the local region in strict accordance with the authorization of the UN Security Council and the international law.
It is the largest unit of all Chinese peacekeeping troops
In each theater of the United Nations, normally the infantry battalion, guard company, engineer company, hospital, police riot squad, military police platoon, and communication platoon, etc. would be set up based on needs. For most of the UN peacekeeping mission areas, a "battalion" is the largest unit of the peacekeeping forces.
All the peacekeeping forces that China has sent to 6 countries before are "companies" or of a scale that is equivalent to a company. These Chinese peacekeeping forces are not dominant in the mission areas judging by their scale, formation, personnel, equipment and task nature.
The peacekeeping infantry battalion sent by China this time, judging by the number of persons alone, has exceeded the standard establishment of a traditional "battalion" in China and is close to a reinforced battalion in time of war.
The Chinese peacekeeping infantry battalion has three affiliated battle companies and one affiliated support company, covering a number of Army corps such as infantry, armored forces, special operation forces, artillery forces, communication troops and medical troops.
There may be female staff members and populace in the peacekeeping mission areas. To this end, the infantry battalion has included a squad consisting of 13 female soldiers.
Such mixed staffing pattern has made the Chinese peacekeeping infantry battalion a complete combat unit which not only can perform various tasks assigned by the theater headquarters independently, but also cooperate with the adjacent troops to accomplish more complicated tasks.
