During the process, China has managed to train a team of demining experts, developed a variety of cost-effective and practical demining equipment, and accumulated a great deal of experience, thus laying a solid foundation for its active participation in international humanitarian demining efforts. China's demining techniques and equipment fully comply with the International Mine Action Standards.
Keenly aware of the dire humanitarian and socio-economic consequences caused by landmines, China has committed itself to the international humanitarian demining project.
In 1998, the Chinese government established an annual trust fund to finance its international humanitarian demining efforts. Over the years, China has provided demining assistance to more than 40 Asian and African countries in the form of training programs, demining equipment, medical assistance and field mine clearance assistance. Since 1998, China has sponsored 14 sessions of demining training programs in China for personnel from Afghanistan, Angola, Burundi, Jordan, Lebanon, Sudan and South Sudan and trained more than 400 professional deminers.
China has also dispatched teams of experts to Cambodia, Eritrea and Thailand for on-site training and demining instruction, with 200 professional deminers trained and 200,000 square meters of mine-contaminated land returned to productive use.
As a developing country, the budget China has allocated for international demining actions is relatively small in comparison with that of Western countries. However, China attaches no political conditions to the assistance it provides and it imparts demining know-how to beneficiary countries without any reservations. China's demining equipment is also safe, inexpensive and easy to use, and has been promoted in a large number of developing countries.
China has also been actively engaged in exchanges and cooperation with the international community including NGOs in this field. From Oct 17 to 19, China hosted a visit by the Special Envoy of the Ottawa Convention, H.H. Prince Mired Bin Raad Bin Zeid Al-Hussein of Jordan.
During his visit, the prince made a trip to Nanjing PLA University of Science and Technology, and watched a demonstration of demining techniques and a display of China's indigenously developed equipment. The prince spoke highly of China's important contribution to the cause of international humanitarian demining and the professional and cost-effective equipment and technology it had developed.
In a meeting with the Laotian trainees, he encouraged them to use what they have learned in China to the fullest extent, so as to rebuild a secure and prosperous homeland free from the nightmare of landmines.
During the past two decades, China has demonstrated its commitment to the cause of international demining efforts through concrete actions. As a responsible member of the international community, China will continue to be actively engaged in and make due contribution to the noble cause of eliminating the scourge of landmines and explosive remnants of war around the world.
The author is a Beijing-based scholar of international relations.
(China Daily 11/01/2013 page8)
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