CHINA deployed riot police to Haiti yesterday, marking the first time that Beijing has sanctioned the participation of its Armed Forces in peacekeeping duties in the Western hemisphere.

The deployment is seen as a major step in China’s efforts to enhance its global role.

The country, a permanent member of the United Nations Security Council, has been criticised for not shouldering its share of the burden of peacekeeping duties.

More recently, however, it has cultivated a higher profile in international affairs, playing host to six-party talks aimed at resolving a crisis over the nuclear ambitions of North Korea.

The contingent of 95 riot police, including 13 women, spent three months preparing and passed exams administered by the UN. The Chinese, specially trained for riots and crowd control, will join a multinational force on the troubled island, where about 50 people have been killed since September.

Port-au-Prince, the Haitian capital, has been beset by violence between former soldiers who helped to topple President Aristide and supporters of the exiled leader, who fled in February after coming under pressure from the United States and France to stand down.

Brazil is leading a UN force of about 2,600 soldiers — a fraction of the 6,700 troops and 1,600 police authorised for the mission to stabilise Haiti, after the February revolt in which more than 200 people were killed.

The deployment of the Chinese force comes as questions are being asked about relations with the outside world after the killing of a Chinese engineer by militants in Pakistan. Wang Peng, 32, died of bullet wounds during the raid by Pakistani troops on Thursday in which another abducted Chinese engineer, Wang Ende, was rescued unhurt. The Chinese engineers had been working on a hydroelectric dam project in the wild South Waziristan tribal district of Pakistan when they were kidnapped on October 9.

Their five captors, all from an al-Qaeda-linked militant group, were killed in the raid. Furthermore, Pakistan has promised to track down Abdullah Mehsud, a former prisoner at the American prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, who was the mastermind behind the kidnappings.

In Beijing, commentators have called on the Government to safeguard China’s interests abroad, while state television yesterday showed extensive coverage of the repatriation of the body of Wang Peng in a flag-draped coffin carried by a guard of honour.

Mr Wang’s killing is expected to propel China into an active role in the hunt for international terrorists, in a reversal of its traditional foreign policy of non-interference. For the past three years, many Chinese have regarded the United States-led War on Terror as a hegemonic plot, yet since Mr Wang’s killing tens of thousands of internet messages have urged Beijing to join global efforts to hunt down militant fanatics.

“Three years ago, a lot of people here were happy at the tragedy that took 3,000 innocent lives. But now, in our own sadness, we are able to understand the feelings of Americans after 9/11,” read one posting on sina.com, which carried more than 20,000 messages on the subject.

The calls for a greater engagement and participation in international affairs were echoed by experts at government-run institutes.

Jin Canrong, a Professor at the International Relations Institute of the People’s University, said: “We must understand that along with the economic development of China, Chinese citizens will face a higher rate of dangers abroad. Chinese are no longer the safest foreigners overseas. In fact we are becoming a target of terrorism.”

A poll in the People’s Daily newspaper showed that 65 per cent of Chinese believe that there is a growing threat from terrorists to Chinese people abroad.

China has participated in peacekeeping missions since 2000 in East Timor, Liberia and Kosovo, among other places, but it has never sent combat troops.

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