When Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas visited Beijing in June, China vowed to contribute \u201cChinese wisdom, Chinese strength\u201d to resolve the long-standing conflict between the Palestinians and Israel. <\/p>\n
That pledge, coming on the heels of a Beijing-brokered rapprochement between bitter rivals Iran and Saudi Arabia, was widely seen as part of China\u2019s ambition to expand its diplomatic clout in the Middle East \u2013 a region traditionally dominated by US power. <\/p>\n
A few months on, Beijing\u2019s offer to broker peace in one of the world\u2019s most intractable conflicts is being tested by a fresh outbreak of war between Israel and Gaza, after the Palestinian militant group Hamas launched an unprecedented surprise attack on Israel. <\/p>\n
So far, China\u2019s response to the crisis \u2013 which has left at least 1,200 Israelis dead alongside 950 Palestinians and thousands more wounded or displaced \u2013 has been a bland call for restraint from both sides, with no condemnation of Hamas <\/strong>for a rampage that unleashed the killing of civilians and kidnapping of hostages, including children and the elderly. <\/p>\n Chinese leader Xi Jinping, who touted a Beijing-led security initiative for the Middle East as an alternative to the US-led system when he last visited the region in December, has yet to make any public statement on the conflict. <\/p>\n Experts say this initial response may expose Beijing\u2019s limited influence in the region, despite official propaganda talking up China as the world\u2019s new peacemaker. <\/p>\n \u201cChina doesn\u2019t really have the experience or expertise in the region to make a meaningful change\u201d on the long-running, complex Palestine-Israel conflict, said Jonathan Fulton, an Abu Dhabi-based senior non-resident fellow at the Atlantic Council. <\/p>\n \u201cYou don\u2019t see governments in the region saying \u2018what\u2019s China\u2019s solution to this\u2019 because they\u2019re not seen as a credible actor here yet.\u201d <\/p>\n As condemnations against Hamas poured in from the United States, Europe and much of Asia, Africa and Latin America, Beijing refrained from calling out the group and sought to present itself as a neutral party in the conflict. <\/p>\n In a brief statement Sunday, China\u2019s Foreign Ministry called on \u201crelevant parties to remain calm, exercise restraint and immediately end the hostilities.\u201d It repeated Beijing\u2019s support for a \u201ctwo-state solution\u201d to establish an independent State of Palestine as a way out of the conflict. <\/p>\n Beijing\u2019s muted reaction to Saturday\u2019s rampage by Hamas has drawn pushback from Israel. Yuval Waks, a senior official at the Israeli Embassy in Beijing, said his country expected a \u201cstronger condemnation\u201d of Hamas from China. <\/p>\n \u201cWhen people are being murdered, slaughtered in the streets, this is not the time to call for a two-state solution,\u201d Waks told reporters Sunday, according to Reuters. <\/p>\n US Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, who was in Beijing for a bipartisan congressional visit, also expressed his disappointment with China\u2019s response during a meeting with Xi on Monday. <\/p>\n \u201cI say this with respect but I\u2019m disappointed by the foreign ministry\u2019s statement showing no sympathy or support for the Israeli people during these tragic times,\u201d Schumer said, echoing criticism he had made earlier while meeting with China\u2019s foreign minister. <\/p>\n Following the criticism, Chinese Foreign Ministry Spokesperson Mao Ning went a little further at a regular news briefing later on Monday, saying China was \u201cdeeply saddened by the civilian casualties\u201d and condemns \u201cany acts that harm civilians.\u201d <\/p>\n But she sidestepped a question about whether Beijing considers Hamas\u2019 attacks on civilians as terrorist acts and reiterated the message of neutrality, calling China \u201ca friend to both Israel and Palestine.\u201d <\/p>\n Throughout its statements, Beijing has stopped short of naming Hamas, describing the crisis vaguely as an \u201cescalation of tensions and violence between Palestine and Israel.\u201d <\/p>\n The closest reference to Hamas came from Zhang Jun, Beijing\u2019s permanent representative to the United Nation, who said \u201cintense clashes\u201d had broken out between Israel and \u201carmed groups in Gaza.\u201d <\/p>\n Like Russia and most Arab countries, China views Hamas as a resistance organization, not a terrorist group as designated by the US and European Union. <\/p>\n China\u2019s reluctance to name or condemn Hamas has drawn comparison to its response to the Ukraine war. There, Beijing has refused to condemn Russia\u2019s aggression or even refer to it as an \u201cinvasion.\u201d <\/p>\n And Beijing\u2019s ambiguous stance on Hamas\u2019 violence stands in stark contrast to its \u201czero-tolerance\u201d approach to terrorism in the western region of Xinjiang, where authorities unleashed a years-long security crackdown that saw the mass internment of Uyghurs and other Muslim minorities. <\/p>\n Despite its claims of neutrality, coverage of the conflict on China\u2019s state-run television appears more slanted. <\/p>\n Hamas fighters\u2019 brutal killing of Israeli civilians was given little air time on the country\u2019s most watched news program on state broadcaster CCTV. Instead, the prime-time show focused primarily on Israel\u2019s airstrikes on Gaza \u2013 and the scenes of devastation they created there. <\/p>\n \u201cYou can plainly see China play sides,\u201d said Phil Cunningham, a media consultant who tracks and analyzes CCTV\u2019s nightly news program, noting it follows a similar pattern of the network\u2019s pro-Russian coverage of the Ukraine war. <\/p>\n Chinese state media were also quick to blame the US for the conflict now raging in the heart of the Middle East. <\/p>\n In an editorial Monday, the Global Times, a nationalist tabloid affiliated with the Chinese Communist Party\u2019s official mouthpiece, criticized Western countries \u2013 especially the US \u2013 for \u201ctaking sides\u201d on the issue and \u201cfanning the flames rather than cooling down the situation.\u201d <\/p>\n \u201cThis is a consistent pattern for Western countries in many conflict regions, where they often create substantial obstacles to crisis resolution,\u201d it said. <\/p>\n That evening, CCTV\u2019s news segment on the conflict aired file footage of the USS Ford aircraft carrier, citing the US Defense Secretary as saying it had been deployed to the Eastern Mediterranean amid an increased presence of the US Air Force in the region. It then said a Hamas spokesperson had \u201ccondemned the US for its involvement in the invasion against the Palestinian people.\u201d <\/p>\n On China\u2019s heavily censored social media, many users have voiced support of the Palestinians and criticized Israel \u2013 often with a direct or veiled swipe at the US. <\/p>\n While some expressed shock and outrage over Hamas\u2019 brutal killings of Israeli civilians, the deluge of anti-Israel posts is a telling sign of what kind of narrative is allowed to prevail in the country\u2019s heavily curated online opinion. <\/p>\n As the conflict escalates, Beijing finds itself in a tricky spot. <\/p>\n Fulton, the analyst at the Atlantic Council, said China\u2019s response was consistent with its traditional lean toward the Palestinians on the issue with Israel. <\/p>\n When the Gaza conflict last flared up in 2021, Beijing \u2013 which held the presidency of the UN Security Council at the time \u2013 voiced support for the Palestinians and presented China as an alternative to the US on the issue. <\/p>\n China has long been friendly with Palestinian leaders. <\/p>\n Abbas, the president of the Palestinian Authority in the West Bank \u2013 which lost control of Gaza to its rival Hamas in 2007 \u2013 has visited Beijing five times in his nearly two decades in power. During his latest trip in June, Xi and Abbas announced an upgrade in bilateral relations to a \u201cstrategic partnership.\u201d <\/p>\n But China has also deepened economic ties with Israel in recent years, ramping up trade and investment in sectors from technology to infrastructure. Israel has participated in Beijing\u2019s Belt and Road initiative, which saw the construction of a new port in Haifa, the busiest shipping hub in the country, by a Chinese state-owned company. <\/p>\n However, the realization that Israel is always going to be in the US camp remains a major concern for Beijing, especially as its global rivalry with Washington heats up. <\/p>\n \u201cChina looks at Israel as an opportunity to get points with the broader Arab world and the rest of the developing world. If you criticize Israel, you get 20-odd Arab countries\u2019 support in international fora. And that\u2019s been very helpful in things like declarations on the situation in Xinjiang where a lot of Muslim-majority countries have voiced support for China\u2019s approach,\u201d Fulton said. <\/p>\n \u201cI think in most issues, the Israel-Palestine conflict doesn\u2019t really impact China directly. I think they use it as a tool for its own domestic and foreign policy objectives.\u201d <\/p>\n Resolving the conflict will be a far cry from the peace deal China helped broker between Iran and Saudi Arabia, where both governments were looking for an exit ramp from bilateral tensions to focus on their own domestic challenges. <\/p>\n In that case, the heavy-lifting had already been done with the year-long effort by local actors Iraq and Oman \u2013 and China stepped in at the last minute to offer great power support, Fulton noted. <\/p>\n Following Abbas\u2019s trip, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said in June he had also received an invitation for an official visit to China. But that trip is unlikely to take place now, Fulton said. <\/p>\n \u201cThe Israeli government is probably not in the same place as either the Saudis and the Iranians were for any kind of resolution. They\u2019re probably going to want to ensure that Hamas can\u2019t attack them like this again,\u201d he said. <\/p>\n \u201cI just don\u2019t think there\u2019s much chance for a country like China that doesn\u2019t have deep experience in the conflict to play much of a role.\u201d <\/p>\n\n When Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas visited Beijing in June, China vowed to contribute \u201cChinese wisdom, Chinese strength\u201d to resolve the long-standing conflict between the Palestinians and Israel. That pledge, coming on the heels of a Beijing-brokered rapprochement between bitter rivals Iran and Saudi Arabia, was widely seen as part of China\u2019s ambition to expand its <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":0,"featured_media":9954,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[23],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-9953","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-world"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9953","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=9953"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9953\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/9954"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9953"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9953"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9953"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}} China\u2019s response<\/h2>\n
State media coverage<\/h2>\n
Limited role<\/h2>\n