U.N.'s Ban calls on China to be bigger peacemaker

China, a relative latecomer to global peacekeeping, hasabout 1,800 peacekeepers deployed abroad, making it the secondlargest contributor after France from among the five permanentmembers of the U.N. Security Council.

"This is an area where China stands tall," Ban said in aspeech given to students at Beijing's Foreign AffairsUniversity.

"You are one of the U.N.'s leading member states, and younow rank among our top 10 contributors of both funds andpeacekeeping forces. China will need to rise even higher inboth rankings if we are to meet growing global challenges," Bansaid.

China last year agreed to send a 315-member engineeringunit to Sudan's strife-torn Darfur, where international expertssay the conflict between insurgent groups, the Sudanesegovernment and state-backed militias has killed 200,000 peopleand driven millions from their homes.

The Sudanese government has accepted a hybrid peacekeepingforce of 26,000 African Union and United Nations troops, butonly 9,000 are on the ground.

China, which sent a first deployment of 142 troops toDarfur last November, will send the remaining engineers inmid-July, Xinhua news agency said on Monday.

China has advised Sudan to cooperate with U.N. efforts toresolve the crisis but has faced widespread Western criticismas the African country's biggest arms supplier and for notusing its oil and investment stakes to press harder for an endto bloodshed in the arid Darfur region.

The U.N. chief, who will meet Chinese President Hu Jintaoand other leaders on Wednesday, told Chinese journalists hehoped Beijing would be "more proactive" on other global issuesranging from food security to climate change, the China Dailysaid.

"I expect that China's people and government will activelyparticipate, commensurate with your economic development andpolitical responsibility," the paper quoted Ban as saying.

(Reporting by Ian Ransom; Editing by Alex Richardson)