China takes up civic work in Africa

It's sending 1,809 UN peacekeepers and 300 volunteers in a new Chinese 'peace corps' program.

from the June 27, 2007 edition

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Liu, who is in charge of the UN police force's administrative personnel work, spends her days in a trailer office with four other peacekeepers keeping track of personnel sick days, home leaves, and other special requests.

Previous to this mission, Liu only left her home province once – to go on her honeymoon to Hong Kong.

Today, she shares a small apartment in Wau, Sudan, with six other UN personnel. They have no running water and no electricity.

She does her shopping in the market (the store owners know her and yell out ni hao ma – "How are you?" – when she passes by) and reads at night with the help of a Chinese government-issued rechargeable lamp.

She calls her husband and daughter once a week for three minutes and tries to also communicate throughe-mail, but it's complicated, as her UN-issued computer keyboard does not have Chinese characters.

It is less exciting than she had hoped, she admits. The insecurity, heat, food, bug bites, and loneliness test her. And above all, she misses her baby Siwei, she says, showing off a picture of her now 2-year-old child.

But Liu nonetheless has a clear sense of why she is here.

"Peace is giving [the South Sudanese] a chance for development. I believe the future of Wau will be brighter," she says, untangling her long dark hair, knotted by the hot afternoon wind. "We Chinese come from a different country, far away­, but we are in harmony with Africa."

Maj. Mutacho Shadrock, a Kenyan commanding officer with the UN forces in Wau, says the Chinese peacekeepers "keep to themselves and the vast majority doesn't speak English, even the commanding officers." But, he adds, "They are good workers. They have repaired bridges and roads and are doing good work. And that is what is important."

"I am hardly an apologist for China," says Harry Broadman, an economic advisor on Africa at the World Bank. "But people tend to forget that China itself is a developing country that has had global leadership thrust upon it.

"People ascribe a lot of power and knowledge to them without understanding that they are climbing the learning curve themselves," he says, adding that China wants to be seen as a force for good on the continent. "They want to give Africa a fair deal. I believe that."

Liu is finishing her day in the office and going out to join some of the other Chinese peacekeepers for a table-tennis tournament at the engineering corps camp.

She is a terrific player, she says, and will probably win. "But it's not just about winning, of course," she says. "It's about playing the game with – with ..." Liu searches for the word in English, and then smiles, "with dignity."

That, she says, is the way things are done in China.

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