CHINA’S BOOTS ON THE GROUND IN SOUTH SUDAN, RESPONSIBLE LEADERSHIP OR A ‘DARKER PURPOSE’?
Andrew Coleman
INTRODUCTION In September 2014 China began deploying a battalion of ‘combat ready’ soldiers to join 11,389 troops, military advisors and police, under the command of the United Nations Mission in the Republic of South Sudan (UNMISS).1 The Chinese troops will most likely be deployed to the states of Unity and the Upper Nile, which contain the South Sudanese government’s only working oil fields.2 China’s deployment to South Sudan was notable because it was a sizeable combat force (an infantry battalion) and because the deployment was to an area of strategic interest to China.3