China's creative disillusionment in
the Middle East By Emanuele
Scimia
Within the broader picture of the
evolving balance of power in the Middle East,
Operation Pillar of Defence, the military campaign
that Israel conducted against the Hamas-ruled Gaza
Strip from 14 to 21 November, laid bare China's
still weak clout in the region, while Beijing is
walking the tightrope between its long-established
ties with the Arab world and its growing political
and economic engagement with Israel.
On
November 23, during a meeting in Beijing with
Palestinian Authority (PA) special envoy Bassam
al-Salhi, Chinese Foreign Minister Yang Jiechi
voiced his government's support for the
Palestinian people in their conflict with Israel
and PA's demand for a non-member observer state
status at the United Nations - the
UN General Assembly would
approve it on November 29.
China's top
diplomat also promised to Palestinians US$1
million in humanitarian aid. Yang met with
al-Salhi just two days after a ceasefire had
stopped the latest armed clash between Israel and
Hamas' Islamist militants.
One day before
al-Salhy's visit to Beijing, Chinese Ambassador to
Jordan Yue Xiaoyong expressed China's alarm over
Israel's extensive air raids against the Gaza
Strip during the eight days of confrontation and,
accordingly, the killing of innocent civilians.
Yue talked overtly about the "misuse of force" by
the Israeli Defence Force (IDF): yet another clue
that Beijing tilted slightly to Palestinian camp
with regard to the effects of Operation Pillar of
Defence.
China backs the international
community in its call for resuming the peace talks
between Israelis and Palestinians, as well as its
efforts for a two-state solution of the age-old
crisis, but it is in a geopolitical trouble when
it has to balance concomitant Israeli and Arab
countries' interests, notably at a time when the
Sino-Israeli dialogue is on the rise.
Israel and China are strengthening their
political and economic ties after more than a
decade of tensions. The bone of contention was
Jerusalem's decision - induced by Washington's
pressure - to cancel two arms deal with Beijing:
the sale of the Phalcon reconnaissance aircraft in
1999 and upgrading of laser-guided unmanned Harpy
aircrafts in 2004, which Israel had sold to the
Chinese government in 1994.
Following
China's emerging interests in the Mediterranean
and Arabian Seas, Sino-Israeli military exchanges
are gaining new traction. In August, China's
People's Liberation Army Navy sent three warships
to Israel for a five-day visit marking the 20th
anniversary of diplomatic ties between the two
countries. Previously, in May, Israeli Chief of
the General Staff Lieutenant General Benny Gantz
had visited China for a week, while People's
Liberation Army (PLA) Chief of the General Staff
General Chen Bingde had toured Israel in 2011.
China and Israel are supposed to be
cooperating in the fight against piracy off the
Horn of Africa, even if Israel has never publicly
admitted to conduct anti-smuggling and
counter-terror operations across the region, the
Times of Israel revealed on August 15.
As
for their common strategic perspective, Beijing
and Jerusalem are mulling realization of a cargo
rail link from the Israeli ports of Haifa and
Ashdod to the resort city of Eilat, connecting
Israel's Mediterranean coast to the Gulf of Aqaba;
the rail line might be extended to the city of
Aqaba, in the Jordanian side of the Gulf. If
implemented, this project would allow Chinese
exports to reach Europe without sailing through
the Egypt-controlled Suez Canal.
It is
worth noting that Beijing is Israel's
third-largest trading partner, immediately after
the European Union and United States, according to
data from the International Monetary Fund - in
2010, Sino-Israeli combined trade totaled US$6.5
billion.
Notwithstanding the warming trend
of their bilateral relationship, China's
dual-track policy towards the Middle East cannot
go unnoticed in Israel. In this regard, one
episode under the spotlight involves the Bank of
China (BOC). The families of eight Israeli
high-school students, killed in Jerusalem by a
Palestinian militant in 2008, filed a lawsuit in
New York state court last October against the
Chinese bank, accusing it of making wire transfers
worth millions of dollars for Hamas and Islamic
Jihad as of 2003.
Furthermore, Israeli
plaintiffs alleged that the BOC had been providing
this kind of service for the two Palestinian
terrorist groups with the consent of the Chinese
government. The BOC denied the allegation,
remarking that "it strictly prohibits any kind of
financial services for any terrorist organization"
in compliance with United Nations regulations,
international and domestic laws.
Such an
affair would back up Israeli suspicions of a
triangulation between China, Iran and Teheran's
proxies in the Levant (ie Hamas in the Gaza Strip,
Hezbollah in Lebanon and the Alawite regime of
Bashar al-Assad in Syria). Israel believes that
Palestinian radical organizations have obtained
Chinese-made and Chinese-designed rockets through
Iranian intermediation, such as the WS-1E, the
British Broadcasting Corp reported on November 15.
The WS-1E is an upgraded Grad missile that
militants in Gaza have recently used against
Israeli targets, and which has a range of around
40 kilometers.
In an analysis of scenario
published on November 4, a leading Israeli think
tank, the Institute for National Security Studies
(INNS), wrote that in case of an Israeli
preventive strike on Iran's nuclear facilities,
the probable stalemate between Russia and the
United States on how to handle the crisis underway
would pave the way for a more active Chinese role
across the region, with the possiblity that
Beijing that "may be capable of serving as a
mediator".
Yet, unlike strategic
developments drawn up by the INSS, the latest
events in the Middle-eastern tinderbox highlight
how it is difficult for China to turn strategic
theories, doctrines or approaches into concrete
results with regard to this region.
Proceeding from the assumption that
Chinese diplomacy must reflect the country's
status of great power, Peking University Professor
Wang Yizhou stresses that China's "creative
involvement" in the Middle East should hinge on
programs of strategic assistance (namely on
investments in energy and natural resources).
Wang's view tallies with that of another
Chinese scholar, Liu Kang, whose strategy of
"constructive participation" envisions China's
gradual shift from the non-interference policy to
a more proactive stance in this area.
For
Arab leaders, the Chinese policy of
non-interference in the internal affairs of
Middle-eastern countries is a limit to Beijing's
chance to counterbalance the US-Israeli axis,
particularly as far as the Palestinian peace
process is concerned - a balancing role that Arab
nations also imagine for Europe, but that the Old
Continent seems to be unable to play.
Although the Chinese influence in the
Middle East is gradually increasing, Beijing is
not yet a game-changer from Maghreb to the Fertile
Crescent, as demonstrated by both the failure of
its four-point plan to promote a political
solution to the conflict in Syria and its marginal
role in the diplomatic efforts to stop Operation
Pillar of Defence against Gaza and rockets attacks
by Palestinian militants towards the south of
Israel, comprising the outskirts of Tel Aviv and
Jerusalem.
Emanuele Scimia is a
journalist and geopolitical analyst based in
Rome
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