The Israel-Hamas conflict widens China’s gap with the United States while deepening its connections with Russia

The Israel-Hamas conflict widens China's gap with the United States while deepening its connections with Russia
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The battle between Israel and Hamas looks to be widening the gap between the United States and its allies on the one hand, and China and its ally Russia on the other, as concerns about a wider conflict in the Middle East increase.

At the UN Security Council, where attempts to draft a resolution in response to the crisis were thwarted by disputes among members including the United States, Russia, and China—all of whom have veto power—the division has been evident this week.

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At least 32 Americans, 19 Russians, and four Chinese citizens are among the more than 4,000 people who have died in the fighting as of Saturday in the Gaza Strip and 1,400 people in Israel.

Presidents Xi Jinping of China and Vladimir Putin of Russia have adopted a different strategy while President Joe Biden has stressed American support for Israel, denouncing Hamas’s horrific attack on Israeli forces on October 7 and supporting “restrained” retribution by Israeli forces.

While failing to specifically denounce Hamas, the two leaders have responded in a generally similar manner, denouncing attacks on civilians, calling for a cease-fire, and offering to mediate.

China and Russia met on Thursday to reiterate their joint stance on the conflict and to discuss how they were closely coordinating their Middle East policies. Both countries have emphasized that the creation of an independent Palestinian state is the only way to end the conflict.

Zhai Jun, the Middle East envoy for China, told Mikhail Bogdanov, his Russian counterpart, in Qatar, where he was making his first stop on a trip to the region, that the fundamental reason the Israeli-Palestinian conflict has reached its current stage is that the legitimate national rights of the Palestinian people have not been protected.

Robert Sutter, a professor of international politics at George Washington University, said of China and Russia, “They’re trying to keep their relationships stable.” But it’s clear that they are leaning more toward the Palestinians and less toward the Israelis.

Weeks before Putin’s invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, China and Russia had already established a “no limits” alliance. Since then, China and Russia’s relations with the West have gotten worse rather than better.

China, which has financially and politically supported Russia’s conflict, views Moscow as a crucial ally in its efforts to persuade developing nations to adopt Xi’s vision of a different global order that is less dominated by the United States and its democratic friends.

This week, Putin’s attendance at a global event in Beijing celebrating the 10th anniversary of Xi’s iconic Belt and Road plan served as another evidence of the two nations’ close connections. Putin’s travel was his first outside the former Soviet Union following the issuance of an international arrest warrant against him in March due to the conflict in Ukraine.

According to Alexey Maslov, head of the Institute of Asian & African Studies at Moscow State University, Putin’s presence was less about the initiative—to which Russia is not a party—than it was about demonstrating that he still had influential connections.

According to Maslov, Xi made an effort to treat Putin with “the greatest respect,” placing him on an equal footing with himself. The two leaders joined the gathering at the Great Hall of the People side by side, he observed.

In his remarks at the Belt and Road Forum, Xi did not bring up the conflict between Israel and Hamas. Foreign Minister Wang Yi told the Saudi foreign minister last week that Israel had “gone beyond the scope of self-defense” and should “stop its group punishment” of Palestinians in Gaza, the Palestinian enclave in which Hamas launched its offensive. His officials have been more blunt.

Israel has voiced “deep disappointment” with China’s response to the Hamas attack, which resulted in the massacre of entire families and the hostage-taking of an estimated 200 individuals, including children and the elderly.

“From an Israeli perspective, this was Israel’s 9/11 or even worse,” said Gedaliah Afterman, director of the Asia Policy Program in the Abba Eban Institute for International Diplomacy in Israel. “And the Chinese treated it as if it’s just another round.”

Any nation seeking to influence events in the Middle East must adopt a “more balanced approach,” according to Amir Lati, the general consul of Israel in Hong Kong, a province controlled by China.

He stated, “We were unhappy with some countries that were more vague about condemning these acts. We want countries, especially countries that we consider sympathetic to Israel, to treat these awful crimes as terrorism.

Calling for a two-state solution is irrelevant since Hamas does not agree with it, Lati continued.

According to Maslov, China, and Russia have held off on denouncing Hamas because they want to see how Muslim-majority nations respond, not just in the major oil-producing countries in the Middle East with which they have close economic ties but also in other regions of the world like Indonesia and Malaysia.

He said that Russia would not want to incite Islamic insurgents within its own borders, notably those in the provinces of Chechnya and Dagestan. “Russia will join the opinion of the majority of Arab leaders,” he said.

China, which has been charged with mistreating members of its Uyghur Muslim minority, has long supported Palestine and recognized the State of Palestine in 1988 despite this. However, it is also attempting to strike a balance in its diplomatic ties with Israel.

Prior to the start of the war, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu had planned a trip to China, where Xi had welcomed Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas in June.

Xi has attempted to present China as a potential mediator in both Ukraine and the Middle East, an area that has historically been dominated by the United States, as part of his efforts to increase his global influence.

According to Wang Jin, assistant director of Northwest University’s Institute of Middle East Studies, China’s approach to the area “has always been very clear.”

In an audio message posted to the messaging app WeChat, he declared, “China does not seek proxies in the Middle East, does not seek financial gain from the Middle East, and is unwilling to fill the so-called vacuum in the Middle East.” “This is Chinese thinking, which is different from American thinking,”

When Beijing hosted meetings where Saudi Arabia and Iran decided to reestablish diplomatic ties, Beijing earned a surprising diplomatic success this year. Xi was also a staunch supporter of the BRICS bloc’s growth, which will include six new members including Egypt, Iran, Saudi Arabia, and the United Arab Emirates starting in 2019.

According to State Department spokesperson Matthew Miller, after Blinken’s call with Wang, the Chinese foreign minister, on October 14, Blinken urged Beijing to use its clout to stop the Israel-Hamas war from spreading to other nations in apparent recognition of the advancements China has made in the region.

Nicholas Burns, the American ambassador to China, stated this month that “to be effective,” one must stand for something.

At a gathering organized by the National Committee on U.S.-China Relations on October 11, he remarked, “It is still to be shown if China has the capacity to be a true mediator since you have to speak the truth to both parties.

Burns continued, “You don’t really see the Chinese engaging in this type of real-world, practical diplomatic that the United States has been engaged in for a long time. Therefore, they seem to be rather further away from these issues than we are, in my opinion.

Beijing’s state media coverage, which this week was overshadowed by coverage of the Belt and Road Forum, China’s most significant diplomatic event of the year, reflects Beijing’s far rather subdued response to the battle in Gaza.

David Bandurski, the director of the China Media Project, a free-standing research organization with a Taiwanese base, declared that “the story is nowhere.”

Beijing’s skill in diplomacy and its influence around the world are frequently highlighted in Chinese official media coverage of international matters, but “it can’t really focus on Israel because it’s not really acting actively on the issue,” Bandurski said.

In the interim, the geopolitical environment has shifted as a result of Washington’s decision to send two aircraft carriers to the area, according to Afterman.

The other U.S. friends in the region, he said, “have been watching that closely. That was a very good surprise for Israel.”

It also conveys to China that the United States is still very much in the Middle East, he continued.

While China, according to Afterman, cannot compete with the US militarily, it may be able to use its connections with other regional players to mediate conflicts and ease tensions.

He claimed that China was in a good position to help with the humanitarian crisis by arranging the release of the captives who had been taken as civilians and taken to Gaza.

According to Afterman, both China and Russia, which are less powerful in the Middle East than they once were, appear to be attempting to maintain their choices for as long as possible.

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