The announcement from Beijing comes as President Jacob Zuma moves to the world’s youngest country seeking to mediate peace efforts.

The 700 Chinese blue helmets will comprise the first infantry battalion to participate in a United Nations peacekeeping mission in South Sudan.

The official Xinhua News Agency says 180 of the troops will fly to South Sudan next month.

They’ll be followed by the rest of the battalion in March.

The agency says they’ll be equipped with drones, armoured infantry carriers, anti-tank missiles, mortars and other weapons for self-defence purposes.

President Jacob Zuma’s visiting Tanzania and Uganda, seeing his counterparts today and tomorrow.

He’ll talk to President Salva Kiir in Juba and rebel leader Riek Machar in efforts aimed ending the civil war that’s engulfed South Sudan this past year.

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His mediation efforts begin with a meeting in Dar-es-Salaam today with Tanzanian president Jakaya Kikwete.

President Jacob Zuma will go on from Tanzania to Kampala where he’ll have talks with Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni.

These mediation efforts follow the visit to South Africa recently by President  Salva Kiir.

South Africa’s played a central role – mostly through former president Thabo Mbeki – in bringing peace between South Sudan and Sudan and building capacity in those countries.

Zuma’s left Minister of Environmental Affairs Edna Molewa in charge while he’s out of the country.

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A dozen donors including the African Development Bank have withheld half a billion dollars in contributions until President Jakaya Kikwete acts against the graft.

Last month Tanzanian MPs accused Frederick Werema of authorising the fraudulent transfer of $120m to an energy firm.

The attorney general denies wrongdoing. He says he’s going to avoid disrupting the country’s political atmosphere.

When he took office a decade ago, President Jakaya Kikwete pledged to tackle corruption in government.

The ruling Chama Cha Mapinduzi’s urged him to keep this promise by sacking Werema, Prime Minister Mizengo Pinda, Energy and Minerals Minister Sospeter Muhongo and other senior officials.

A parliamentary investigation found that $120m of government money has been taken from an escrow account, paid to an energy firm and then given to various government ministers.

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