China and Israel are much closer than most people like to think
- At a time when the mainly Jewish state is losing the entire Global South, it will want a friendly Beijing and all its economic benefits on its side
The war on Gaza has created many conspiracy theories. One of my favourites is that Beijing was behind Hamas’ terrorist attacks. Seriously! And it’s not some wild theory floating exclusively online and being promoted by unhinged influencers. It’s in mass circulation newspapers.
Taipei Times, the English-language sister publication of Liberty Times, recently ran an op-ed titled, “China’s connection to Israel attacks”.
How? That’s because “China assists Iran” and “Iran provides substantial funding to Hamas”, according to the author. Ergo, Beijing may have a role in the terror attacks.
Here, at least the alleged support is indirect, and transitive, as in A supports B, B supports C, therefore A supports C.
Another op-ed, this one in the New York Post, a tabloid owned by Rupert Murdoch’s News Corp, is much more direct.
The author gets right to the point: “Pick any terrorist group, rogue regime or horrific conflict in the world today and you’ll likely find that China is behind it. Take Hamas for example.”
He offers many wild claims. My favourite is that Hamas fighters only used Huawei phones. “The terrorist group reportedly switched over to Chinese-made Huawei phones and electronic devices this time around,” he wrote.
“The Israelis may have been flummoxed by the new devices, but Chinese intelligence was surely listening in.”
I am not so sure that Huawei phones are so impenetrable to Israeli and American intelligence!
It’s not my purpose here to debunk conspiracy theories, a rather thankless task. In reality, China and Israel have many interests in common, and these will continue. The Israelis may be upset that Beijing has refused to openly take their side, but the two countries’ leaders are practical – and cynical – enough they will look past their differences once the dust settles.
China is now Israel’s second largest trading partner while the latter has much to sell from its hi-tech industry for internal security against the Palestinians.
Beijing’s neutral position on the Gaza war may have angered the Israelis, but it’s par for the course. It has, all along, tried to make nice with both Palestinians and Israelis; just as it tried to do with Ukraine and Russia.
It’s hardly realistic to expect China to join the West in its almost unconditional support for Israel. So the Chinese have called for “restraint” and a ceasefire, but note that they have not sided with the Palestinians and the Arab states either; that would have crossed a red line for the Israelis.
One new complication is that China and India, against the United States and the Western alliance, are vying for leadership of the Global South. The Chinese, therefore, cannot afford to lose the proverbial “Arab street”.
Beijing has to walk a fine line. Its professed neutrality may upset both the Arabs and the Israelis, but not to the extent as to threaten already established relations. China has long supported the Palestinian cause, dating back to the Maoist era, but more recently, it has also developed close economic ties with the mainly Jewish state.
Israel recognised China in 1950, one of the first non-communist countries to do so. There was a long rough patch during the Cold War. But after the Tiananmen Square crackdown in 1989, Israel was one of the few countries with close ties to the US that were willing to bypass Western sanctions, and trade with the Chinese and sell them weapons.
Normal investment and economic trade expanded quickly after China joined the World Trade Organization in late 2001. Bilateral trade jumped more than 11 per cent to reach US$24.45 billion last year, replacing the US as Israel’s top source of imports. China’s need to placate the Global South over Palestine will not supplant its significant ties with Israel.
Even as some US officials occasionally express unease about the Israeli treatment of Palestinians, Israel and China almost never criticised each other’s human rights situations. At a time when Israel is losing the entire Global South, it will want a friendly China on its side.
