552 { China’s Quest
were of a far more aggressive, militarized, and interventionist nature. During
the Cold War, the UN had drawn a sharp line between enforcement actions,
which authorized the use of military force by member states against other
member states, and peacekeeping operations, which required the consent of
both belligerents. PKO forces were expected to be impartial between bellig-
erents. PKO were undertaken where use of military force was unlikely to be
necessary—after a ceasefire and with the consent of both belligerents. During
the Cold War, the UN authorized the use of military force only once, in Korea.
PKO were not understood to involve the use of military force other than for
immediate self-defense.
After the Cold War and starting with the former Yugoslavia in 1992, the
Security Council began to authorize a very different, nontraditional type of
PKO that did not require the consent of both belligerents, that authorized the
use of military force for a number of purposes other than self-defense (e.g., to
protect refugees, guarantee delivery of relief aid, end mass killings and ethnic
cleansing, or impose a particular government), and by doing these things
effectively taking sides between warring parties. Beijing objected strongly
to this trend, rejecting these PKO as violations of the sovereignty rights of
states.^45 For Beijing, since 1989 upholding the principle of noninterference in
the internal affairs of sovereign states had become paramount. The vitality
of strong norms of state sovereignty touched on China’s own security in the
post–Cold War world.
China’s objections to Western-driven interventionist UNPKO began with
the former Yugoslavia in 1992–1993, as that ex-communist-ruled state disin-
tegrated. China initially voted in favor of establishment of a UN Protection
Force in 1992 as an “interim arrangement to create the conditions for peace
and security required for the negotiation of an overall settlement of the
Yugoslav crisis.”^46 Subsequently, and at the instigation of Germany, France,
and Britain, the Security Council expanded the mandate of the Protection
Force to include establishment of safe havens for persecuted ethnic groups,
no-fly zones, and armed protection of distribution of humanitarian relief.
UN peacekeeping operations were also expanded from the initial Croatia to
Bosnia and Herzegovina, where, unlike in Croatia, the warring parties had
not concluded a ceasefire. China objected to this expansion. Use of military
force to guarantee delivery of humanitarian assistance was “inappropriate,”
said China’s Ambassador Li Daoyu. UN action had not secured the consent
of the belligerents. The new role would put UNPKO in armed opposition to
forces aligned with the Belgrade government. In effect, the UN was taking
sides in Yugoslavia’s internal conflict via armed intervention, or so Beijing
believed. In 1992 and 1993, the PRC abstained eight times on Security Council
resolutions expanding and strengthening the UN’s role in former Yugoslavia.
In the case of Somalia, Beijing went along with the other Perm-5 members
in establishing a PKO to monitor a ceasefire between warlords, and then to