China to set up 8,000 permanent troops for UN peacekeeping: Xi

UNITED NATIONS, Sept. 28 (Xinhua) -- Chinese President Xi Jinping announced here Monday that China is to join the new UN peacekeeping capability readiness system, and will take the lead to set up a permanent peacekeeping police squad, building a peacekeeping standby force of 8,000 troops.

Xi made the announcement when addressing the annual high-level general debate of the 70th session of the United Nations General Assembly at the UN headquarters in New York, where he said that security of different countries is interconnected and no country can achieve stability from others' instability.

The United Nations now has more than 120,000 peace keepers deployed in 16 missions around the world, costing over 8 billion U.S. dollars a year.