China’s response to the October 7 terrorist attack by Hamas against Israel, and the ensuing conflict in Gaza, shows considerable continuity with Chinese diplomacy on Ukraine—and shares many of its counterproductive aspects. In Gaza, China appears willing to bear these costs in an efforts to position itself as a champion of the Global South and safeguard Chinese energy ties to Persian Gulf States. China’s position is consistent with Xi Jinping’s Global Security Initiative, where he makes the case for a new approach to global governance, but its application to the conflict in Gaza only serves to highlight its limitations.
Occupying the rotating presidency of the UN Security Council in November, Chinese officials have sought to portray their country as a mediator and to enhance China’s role in Middle East geopolitics. On November 20, foreign ministers from the Palestinian Authority, Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Egypt, and Indonesia traveled to Beijing to encourage Chinese officials to help bring about a ceasefire in Gaza. Even prior to the Hamas attack, China had been promoting itself as a possible negotiator between the Palestinians and Israelis. Palestinian Authority leader Mahmoud Abbas visited Beijing in June, and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu had been scheduled to travel to Beijing in late October until the war got in the way.
As in Ukraine, China is unlikely to succeed as a mediator due to the perception that it is overtly partial. Although China’s 2023 Global Security Initiative refers to antiterrorism 11 times, in its official statements, the Chinese government never even mentioned the brutal October 7 terrorist attack by Hamas against Israel that precipitated the current conflict in Gaza. (China does not officially designate Hamas as a terrorist group.) Instead, Chinese officials frame the conflict exclusively in terms of Palestinian-Israeli relations and focus their criticism entirely on Israel’s use of force against Hamas in Gaza in response to the terrorist attack. Similar to their position on Ukraine, the Chinese government has called for a ceasefire without any preconditions, which is a non-starter for Netanyahu, and has blamed the United States for “fueling the fire” in Gaza through its support for Israel.
Where Is China’s Mediation in Gaza?
Although China designated a Middle East envoy in charge of the diplomatic effort, Zhai Jun, it seems very unlikely that Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi will match US Secretary of State Antony Blinken’s shuttle diplomacy in the region. Indeed, what the Gaza conflict has magnified is that the United States remains the key force in the Middle East, with its two naval task forces in the Mediterranean and President Biden’s visit to Tel Aviv, Israel. China initially had two naval escort task forces in the region (the 44th and 45th People’s Liberation Army naval task forces), which were engaged in goodwill visits. By contrast, the two US carrier groups were sent to provide firepower in case of maritime contingencies and to deter Israel’s adversaries from broader attacks.
With US encouragement, Qatar and Egypt have been successfully playing key intermediary roles between Israel and Hamas in efforts to release hostages held by Hamas and implement a humanitarian pause in Gaza. Despite its aspirations to play the role of a regional mediator, China has not participated in these negotiations. Instead of showcasing a new approach to global governance, the current conflict has served to highlight the limits of China’s power in the region.
A Costly War for China in Israel
As in Ukraine, China’s own interests have suffered as a result of the Hamas attack and the conflict in Gaza. At least four Chinese citizens have been killed, with several others missing or injured and one dual citizen held hostage. At least 1,000 Chinese citizens were in Israel at the time of the Hamas attack, and the Chinese embassy advised them to arrange for their own departures from the country—at a cost of at least $1,000 each. Prior to the Hamas attack on October 7, Israel and China had been developing economic ties, especially in technology, though Chinese enthusiasm for investment in Israel’s tech sector has been cooling in the past year since the Israeli government decided to boost oversight of security implications, reportedly in response to US concerns. While not a signatory to the Belt and Road Initiative, Israel leads the region in terms of Chinese infrastructure investments in light rail, tunnels, and ports. Shanghai International Port Group, for example, secured a 25-year lease on the Bay Port of Haifa, and a Chinese engineering company, China Harbor, was selected to build a new port in Ashdod, south of Tel Aviv. Such economic ties are likely to suffer in the future as a result of the perception in Israel of China’s lack of neutrality, especially if Netanyahu, who was originally instrumental in developing ties with China, loses power.
Despite Chinese interests in Israel and a long history of cooperation between the two countries, measured voices on Gaza have been few and far between in Chinese social media. To the contrary, as Israeli scholar Tuvia Gering documents, a torrent of virulent anti-Semitism has been unleashed on Chinese social media, where Iranian and Russian anti-Semitic propaganda has found an echo chamber. A study of disinformation on Gaza by the Institute of Strategic Dialogue find that China, Russia, and Iran make common cause of blaming the West for the conflict. As with Ukraine, where China repeated Russian false claims about US biological laboratories in Ukraine, Chinese social media spread false information about Israel.
In the short term, China’s rhetoric and position on Gaza finds resonance in Global South, but Beijing faces a harder task if it intends to contribute to an endgame that is acceptable to all sides in the conflict. Where China may have influence is to persuade Iran not to encourage a widening of the conflict through its proxies. But it remains to be seen whether the aim of China’s diplomacy is to encourage regional stability or to capitalize on the conflict as a distraction from its own domestic woes and concerns about Western pressure in the Indo-Pacific.
