There is no record of
dragons in the nomadic life of the Negev desert,
which dates back at least 4, 000 years (some say
7,000). That may be about to change in the Year of
the Dragon.
The Bedouins of the Negev will
soon witness the sight of a Chinese-built railway
line snaking its way through the melange of brown,
rocky, dusty mountains and the wadis and deep
craters, leading north from the resort city of
Eilat in the Gulf of Aqaba toward the eastern
Mediterranean.
Having developed strong
interests on the two sides of the Persian Gulf
divide - Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) states and
Iran - China is taking an awesome leap as a
big-time player in the geopolitics of the Middle
East by elevating its ties with Israel to a
strategic partnership.
Paradoxically, just
as the United States is hoping to nettle the
dragon in the South
China Sea and "contain" it in the Asia Pacific, it
makes a dramatic, outflanking appearance in the
citadel of American geo-strategies in the Middle
East. The geopolitical implications are profound.
Amid the cacophony of the war drums
beating in the Persian Gulf and in the Levant, it
almost went unnoticed that the exchange of
greetings between Beijing and Tel Aviv last week
marking the 20th anniversary of diplomatic ties
between the two countries acquired a sudden verve
that went far beyond the calls of mere protocol.
Diplomacy for all seasons Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said
his country and China make a "successful
combination" and he could visualize a "dramatic
expansion" of the ties. "I think we've barely
scratched the surface of Israeli-Chinese
relations", he said at a celebration in Tel Aviv
last Tuesday.
In his message of greetings
for the anniversary, President Hu Jintao said
China "attaches great importance to advancing
Sino-Israeli ties and is ready to make joint
efforts with Israel". In turn, Premier Wen Jiabao
noted that China and Israel have "huge potential
and broad prospects for cooperation" and Beijing
is "ready to continue to expand and deepen" the
ties and raise them to "a new high".
Speaking at the function in Tel Aviv,
Netanyahu pointedly invited Beijing to work with
Israel to "address the challenges of securing
Middle East peace". And China's ambassador to
Israel Gao Yanping, who was present, responded:
The further development of
China-Israel relations is not only beneficial to
both countries and the two peoples, but are also
very much conducive to regional stability, world
peace and global prosperity.
Facing the
ongoing transformation and adjustment in the
region [read Arab Spring] and in the world,
China-Israel relationship is now at a new
historical point. We should continue to work
together, grow together and succeed together in
the years to come.
These are heady,
brave thoughts for a region where angels fear to
tread. But the maturity of China-Israel ties today
is such that even as Gao was speaking at Tel Aviv,
her counterpart in the United Nations in New York,
ambassador Li Baodong, was taking note of the
"stalemate" in the Middle East peace process and
reiterating China's strong support for a
Palestinian state as part of a two-state solution,
restoring the "lawful right" of Palestinian
people.
Li said, "China supports the
establishment of an independent Palestinian state
that enjoys full sovereignty, with East Jerusalem
as its capital and based on the 1967 border. China
supports Palestine's membership in the United
Nations." Li went on to roundly condemn the
Israeli government's recent decision giving
approval for plans of expansion of new
settlements. He said:
China is always against Israel's
establishment of Jewish settlements in the
occupied Palestinian territory including East
Jerusalem. We urge Israel to cease the
settlement construction immediately, by prudent
in action and work actively in collaboration
with the efforts of the international community
to promote peace, and create conditions for the
resumption of Palestinian-Israeli peace
negotiation.
Li seemed unperturbed by
the warm sentiments being mutually expressed
between the Chinese and the Israeli leaderships
the very same day that he spoke.
The
parallel portfolio of China's stunning Middle East
diplomacy that was evident during Wen Jiabao's
recent six-day tour of the GCC states is
repeating. (China
weighs 'right side of history' in Gulf, Asia
Times Online, January 17, 2012).
China's
Middle East diplomacy is adroitly advancing three
parallel tracks engaging Iran, GCC states and
Israel. This may seem improbable against the
backdrop of the rise of Iran and the concomitant
hostility it arouses in Israel and the GCC states.
But Beijing sees no contradiction here, and is
striving to make the three tracks even complement
each other. Conceivably, one day they well might.
The great beauty is that all three Middle
Eastern camps - Iran, the GCC and Israel - equally
want the best of relationships with China and are
manifestly vying with each other for the dragon's
prime time. This is going to pose an unsolvable
riddle for other outside powers aspiring for
influence in the region, be it the West or Turkey
and Russia.
Netanyahu said, "I appreciate
China's need to ensure a regular supply of sources
of energy in order to continue its impressive
growth. I believe it is possible to replace
Iranian oil." He still hopes to wean China away
from Iranian oil, although Beijing has no
intentions to erode its economic relationship with
Iran. China-Iran trade is booming at US$45 billion
- as compared to $8 billion China-Israel trade.
'Junction between continents' Nonetheless, Israel is making an offer out of
the massive oil and gas reserves in the Levant
Basin province in the eastern Mediterranean. The
area, encompassing approximately 32,000 square
miles, covers onshore and offshore territory
including the Gaza Strip, Israel, Lebanon, Syria
and Cyprus. The US Geological Survey estimated in
2010 that the area holds a mean of 1.7 billion
barrels of recoverable oil and a mean of 122
trillion cubic feet (tcf) of recoverable gas.
The earlier estimation was that these
reserves would ensure Israel's energy security,
but more recent assessment in the light of new
findings of reserves is that they are far greater
than required to meet Israel's needs.
Huge
infrastructure development is on the cards
including liquefaction facilities to be set up on
Israel's coast and transportation routes leading
to viable markets for Israel's energy export.
These alluring vistas of cooperation explain
Netanyahu's confidence that Israel's bilateral
trade with China can be easily doubled in the very
near future. (China already figures as Israel's
third important trading partner after the US and
European Union.)
Israeli Transport
Minister Yisrael Katz visited Beijing in September
and he has been quoted recently as saying, "The
professional capability of the Chinese companies
in the construction of railway systems and
transportation networks is among the best in the
world."
The Israeli Transport Ministry has
underscored that Israel would prefer Chinese
state-owned companies to undertake the
construction of a so-called "Med-Red" railway
through the Negev Desert's Zin Valley connecting
Israel's Mediterranean and Red Sea coast cities of
Haifa and Eilat.
Swiftly following up on
Katz's discussions in Beijing, China began working
on a joint proposal with Israel for the Eilat
link. Chinese and Israeli companies may jointly
execute the project and, conceivably, China may
invest in the project.
Now, the two
biggest Israeli gas finds - Leviathan and Tamar -
lie off 130 and 80 kilometers from the port city
of Haifa. While Leviathan is estimated to hold
reserves of 16 tcf of gas, Tamar's reserves amount
to at least 8.4 tcf. (Recently, two more gas
fields - Sarah and Mira - were discovered off the
port city of Hadera further south of Haifa.)
The proposed rail-cum-road links would
facilitate transfer of liquefied natural gas from
Israel's Mediterranean coast to the Red Sea coast
from where they can be shipped across the Indian
Ocean to China. Again, the communication link
would enhance the scope for China's exports to
central and southern Europe and the Balkans.
The relationship between China and Israel
has been complex. It has had its ups and downs.
But the Israeli Foreign Ministry is justified in
claiming in a statement last week that the two
countries are presently "enjoying a flowering of
relations in recent years".
Indeed, 2011
has been a good year. In May the commander of the
Chinese navy Admiral Wu Shengli visited Israel,
which was followed in August by the visit by the
chief of the People's Liberation Army general
staff department General Chen Bingde. This was the
first visit by a Chinese military chief to Israel.
In between, Israeli Defense Minister Ehud
Barak visited China in June, which was also the
first of its kind. In July, the two countries
concluded an economic cooperation agreement. To
quote Netanyahu, "The bilateral ties are important
to us; therefore, we are committed to expanding
them quickly in a variety of fields. To this end,
I have issued a sweeping directive to approve any
invitation to visit China."
Clearly,
Israel and China are poised to enter a profound
and highly strategic engagement. Netanyahu told a
cabinet meeting in Tel Aviv on Sunday that he
intended to develop the proposed rail and road
networks joining Eilat to northern Israel as a
"junction between continents". He went on to flag
China's interest in the project.
Beijing
would have already sized up the immense strategic
potential of an audacious transportation route
across the Negev bypassing Egypt's congested Suez
Canal, which would connect Asia with Europe. It
almost seems Washington has lost the plot.
Ambassador M K Bhadrakumar was a
career diplomat in the Indian Foreign Service. His
assignments included the Soviet Union, South
Korea, Sri Lanka, Germany, Afghanistan, Pakistan,
Uzbekistan, Kuwait and Turkey.
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