Diplomats and analysts say the Middle East crisis triggered by Hamas’ attack on Israel is becoming a major test of China’s ambitions to establish influence in a region traditionally dominated by the United States.
Washington remains the most militarily powerful country in the Middle East and demonstrated its strength by dispatching two aircraft carrier strike groups after the attack. It is also a major diplomatic player in the region and, as Israel’s main ally, it has influence over the Jewish state, despite Arab concerns that it has disengaged.
But China’s economic role has grown rapidly and now trades more with most regional countries than the United States. Beijing maintains good relations with almost all countries, including Iran – a backer of Hamas and Lebanon’s Hezbollah – prompting hopes that it can use this influence to prevent regional conflict. US Secretary of State Antony Blinken discussed “stabilizing the region and preventing other parties from becoming involved in the conflict” during a phone call with Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi on Saturday.
In recent years, Beijing has begun trying to expand its political influence in the Middle East as part of President Xi Jinping’s vision to lead emerging and non-aligned countries in the “Global South.”
This year, Beijing played a major role in integrating four Middle Eastern countries – Egypt, Iran, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates – into the BRICS group of emerging nations. In March, it also brokered a détente between Saudi Arabia and Iran, a diplomatic first for China. Xi then offered in June to help Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas advance peace talks with Israel.
Analysts now question how these nascent ambitions will survive the instability brought about by Israel’s conflict with Hamas. When Hamas launched its attack, Beijing adopted a neutral approach, gently calling on both sides to “remain calm” but failing to condemn the Palestinian faction’s actions, which angered many Israelis and Western countries.
“China can indeed negotiate between Saudi Arabia and Iran, but that doesn’t give the Israeli side any huge confidence,” said a senior diplomat with experience in the Middle East.
“Israel’s actions will not harm the U.S.’s position in the region,” the diplomat said. “And if there was a massacre of 1,000 people and China couldn’t clearly explain what that was, then obviously they couldn’t arbitrate for both sides. or mediate conflicts.”
Alessandro Arduino, associate lecturer at the Liu Institute for China Studies at King’s College London, said that while China has been a staunch supporter of the Palestinian cause since the Mao Zedong era, since the 1980s China has also Established friendly economic relations with Israel. .
Analysts say the conflict with Hamas has once again highlighted China’s pro-Palestinian leanings, with articles in Chinese state media blaming the United States for fueling the crisis. This caused dissatisfaction among some Israeli scholars.
Tuvia Gering, an Israeli China expert, posted on X (formerly Twitter) that he wanted to “tell these (Chinese) scholars and journalists that it is morally wrong for them to exploit our suffering for political gain What a depravity.”
Israel’s foreign ministry told China’s special envoy to the Middle East Zhai Jun on Thursday that Beijing’s official response to Hamas attacks was inappropriate and did not recognize the country’s right to self-defense.
U.S. Ambassador to China Nicholas Burns compared Washington’s strong support for Israel with China’s lukewarm stance. “I think China itself acknowledges that it has taken on a larger role in the Middle East,” Burns said Thursday in a conversation with the National Committee on U.S.-China Relations. “(But) you have to be efficient, you have to stand for something. .”
He said the “two-state” solution advocated by China – the idea of a Palestinian state existing side by side with Israel – was not supported by Hamas, whose ” credo is to destroy the state of Israel and kill Israelis ”.
But others say China’s staunch support for the Palestinians could improve its standing in the Arab world and strengthen its position in the region.
“Arab support for Palestine will increase. This is in China’s interest because it brings China and Arab countries back on the same side,” said Sun Yun, director of the China Program at the Stimson Center, a think tank in Washington.
Other analysts say China’s reliance on abstract rhetoric to talk about conflicts, especially when they involve aggression by its diplomatic allies, is also a common tactic that allows Beijing to avoid taking sides, at least in name only. China has followed the same path in its war in Ukraine, refusing to condemn the Russian invasion, instead describing it as a “crisis”.
“This is what the Chinese have been trying to do,” said Moritz Rudolf, a fellow at the Tsai Ing-wen China Center at Yale Law School.
“They (China) know they are going to play a bigger role in the region and they want stability, but at the same time they don’t want to get caught up in the complexity of it,” Rudolph said.
King’s College’s Arduino said China’s relationship with Iran could become an important bargaining chip in its relationship with the United States.
“Especially if China hopes to reach some common ground with the United States on Middle East policy, being one of the few players able to pressure Tehran in some way could become an asset in China’s diplomatic arsenal,” he said. explain.
Gedalia Afterman, an expert on China and the Middle East at Israel’s Abba Eban Institute of Diplomacy and Foreign Relations, said China’s regional ambitions face a delicate moment regardless of how it deals with the United States.
“We have a lot of rhetoric, a lot of discussion about how China is doing all these new things in the region, but when it comes to this new situation, China is not saying anything meaningful,” Oftmann said.
“So either it accepts the challenge and shows it’s a real player, or it’s clear it’s not, or there’s a lot less of it than people thought.”
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