security mechanisms and building the South China Sea into a sea of peace, friendship and cooperation.
Actively Providing International Public Security Goods
China actively supports the UNPKOs. It is a major contributor to the UN peacekeeping budget and the largest troop contributing country among the permanent members of the UNSC. As of December 2018, China has participated in 24 UN peacekeeping missions and has contributed more than 39,000 peacekeepers. 13 Chinese military personnel have sacrificed their lives in the UNPKOs. In the missions, China's peacekeepers have built and repaired over 13,000 kilometers of roads, cleared and disposed of 10,342 mines and various items of unexploded ordnance, transported more than 1.35 million tons of materials over a total distance of more than 13 million kilometers, treated over 170,000 patients, and fulfilled over 300 armed escorts and long or short-distance patrols.
In September 2015, China joined the UN Peacekeeping Capability Readiness System (PCRS) and built a peacekeeping standby force of 8,000 troops. In September 2017, China completed the registration of PCRS Level 1. In October 2018, 13 Chinese PCRS Level 1 units scored high in the UN assessment and were elevated to PCRS Level 2. Five among these units were elevated from Level 2 to Level 3 in February 2019. China has made active efforts to train international peacekeepers and trained over 1,500 individuals from dozens of countries. In December 2018, 2,506 peacekeepers from the PLA served in 7 UN missions and in the UN Department of Peacekeeping Operations.
In line with relevant UNSC resolutions, since December 2008, the Chinese government has dispatched naval ships to carry out regular vessel protection operations in the Gulf of Aden and the waters off the coast of Somalia. Chinese PLAN task groups cooperate with multiple naval forces in the area to safeguard international SLOCs. In the past decade, over 100 vessels and 26,000 officers and sailors have been regularly deployed in 31 convoys, each consisting of three to four ships, in vessel protection operations. They have provided security protection for over 6,600 Chinese and foreign ships, and rescued, protected or assisted over 70 ships in distress.
China's armed forces take an active part in the international efforts for HADR. Military professionals are dispatched to conduct disaster relief operations in affected countries, provide relief materials and medical aid, and strengthen international exchanges in this respect. Since 2012, China's armed forces have participated in the search for the missing Malaysian Airliner MH370, and in the relief operations for Typhoon Haiyan in the Philippines, the Ebola epidemic in West Africa, the water scarcity in Maldives, the earthquake in Nepal, and the flood caused by a dam collapse
