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After many decades of eschewing participation in UN peacekeeping missions, the People's Republic of China has since the 1990s rapidly reversed its critical stance and become an enthusiastic supporter of and contributor to several different types of UN missions including, some that have involved non-traditional peacekeeping. Evolving Chinese peacekeeping policy has suggested that despite the country's widely acknowledged rise to greatpower status, within UN peacekeeping it still takes on the role of a middle power in its preferences for multilateralism and 'norm-taking'. Although China has stated that it wishes to continue its deep engagement in UN peacekeeping within its established norms for the near future, its presence as a rising power has prompted much new debate on how the country will tacitly and directly shape peacekeeping policy.

The rise of China has altered the context of the international humanitarian community of donors and aid agencies. China is becoming one of the key actors in this grouping, undertaking infrastructure projects in areas in which paramount humanitarian challenges exist. The literature discusses how the Chinese approach differs from that of Western donors, but it does not pay much attention to why China concentrates on its state-centric and infrastructure-based approach. This paper seeks to shed some light on this subject by examining the historical evolution of the concept of humanitarianism in China. This evolution has produced three legacies: (i) the ideal of a well-ordered state; (ii) anti-Western sentiment; and (iii) the notion of comprehensive development based on a human-oriented approach. China's policies and discourses on assistance in humanitarian crises today rest on these three legacies. Traditional donors would be well advised to consider carefully the implications of the Chinese understanding of humanitarianism when engaging with the country.

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China's view on the sanctity of state sovereignty has slowly but inexorably been transformed, and the country has found it difficult to continue to adhere to the principles of non-interference and non-intervention with the same degree of rigour as during the Cold War era. This special section will explore what the principles mean to China today; why and how Beijing has become active in peacebuilding and conflict mediation; and what implication China's approach to the principles has for its position in the global liberal order. This article sets the scene by firstly demonstrating that defining the principles has always been a political act, and secondly offering new discussions about how China's expanding economic power forced the country to more actively engage in politics of conflict-affected regions. Finally, it offers a conceptual framework to explain why and how China has become increasingly active in peacebuilding and conflict mediation.