China is holding a two-day online international forum on United Nations (UN) peacekeeping efforts attended by experts and scholars from the UN and countries around the world.

The event comes as the challenges faced by UN peacekeepers are greater than ever as the frequency of attacks against peacekeepers has increased due to a range of conflicts and threats from organized crime and terrorists to climate change.

All of it underscores the importance of forums like this one hosted by China, a country that has deployed more than 50,000 peacekeepers to UN peacekeeping operations over the past 32 years.

"This new security landscape requires a corresponding, innovative security concept that goes beyond traditional paradigms," said Alexandre Zouev, UN assistant secretary-general for law and security institutions.

And that's at the core of these peacekeeping discussions. 

Panel participants share their experiences and ideas about how to better facilitate the missions, build partnerships and solve disputes in a peaceful way.

"The world is becoming more chaotic with more people displaced, with more people fleeing from their homes because of the war in Syria, in Afghanistan," said Zhou Bo, a senior researcher at Tsinghua University's Center for International Security and Strategy.

"So, this is a fundamental problem troubling the United Nations and all the international community. And China would have this meeting, calling it a shared vision. That means this is our shared goal to maintain peace," Zhou said.

"I believe that all the experts and practitioners at the forum are discussing how we could – through the implementation of international peacekeeping in different regions – address the root causes of the conflicts," said Liu Tiewa, deputy dean of Beiwai College at Beijing Foreign Studies University.

Seventy-two peacekeeping missions have been conducted since 1948, including 12 going on today. And more than a million peacekeepers have participated.