Chinese infantry battalion heading to Africa.

via China Defense Blog

China sends first infantry battalion for UN peacekeeping
Source:Xinhua Published: 2014-12-22 13:56:14
China's first infantry battalion to South Sudan is set for departure, marking the country's first infantry to participate in a United Nations peacekeeping mission.
A rally was held Monday in the city of Laiyang in east China's Shandong Province. The dispatch was approved by the Central Military Commission and its chairman Xi Jinping.
Previous Chinese peacekeepers were mainly engineering, transportation, medical service and security guard corps.
The 700-strong infantry battalion included 121 officers and 579 soldiers. Forty-three members have participated in peacekeeping missions before. An infantry squad composed of 13 female soldiers will participate in a peacekeeping mission for the first time.
The first batch of 180 will fly to South Sudan next January, with the rest travelling via air and sea next March.
Commander Wang Zhen said the battalion will be equipped with drones, armored infantry carriers, antitank missiles, mortars, light self-defense weapons, bulletproof uniforms and helmets, among other weapons "completely for self-defense purpose."
As the largest contributor of peacekeepers among the five permanent members of the UN Security Council, China has deployed more than 27,000 military personnel around the globe as of September 2014, according to the Ministry of National Defense.
A total of 2,027 Chinese peacekeepers are currently posted in conflict zones.

Ignore the female infantry squad.  That's more an example of China doing a "we did it first" kind of thing rather than an indication of future Chinese military developments.  The female population is too few and highly regarded for this to be anything more than a publicity stunt.

What should catch your attention is what the Chinese are doing here.

They're making the first solid moves toward expanding, militarily, into Africa.  The brilliance of it is that they're doing it under the UN banner.  They will finally be able to test combat tactics, formations, logistics, battlefield medicine, communications and other aspects of the military art in a real world situation.

I would bet that we hear about Chinese units engaging rebels in pitched battles sooner rather than later.  A few of these missions to iron out the kinks and they'll have the final piece of the puzzle to match the US on equal terms.

Combat experience.

NOTE:  Martin replied on Twitter....

I think while the comment has some validity it's a massive leap to then equate to modern mech/all arms warfare

My response is this.  The Chinese have developed land systems that equal or begin to approach the capabilities of everything we have in the West.  Main Battle Tanks?  They have the Type 99G.  IFVs?  They have numerous ones in service that equal every one of our vehicles...and a few specialized airborne and amphibious IFVs that are by some measures superior.  Helicopters?  They have the WZ-10....the list goes on.  The only thing they lack is real world combat experience..and they're working on that as we speak.