The South China Morning Post (SCMP) on Monday reported Palestinian leaders, and advocates of their cause, are increasingly turning to China as their last hope to end the Israeli military campaign against Hamas.
The Palestinians want China to pay more than just lip service to the “two-state solution” and speak out more forcefully against Israel’s planned incursion into the southern Gaza border city of Rafah.
China has constantly repeated its mantra that only the creation of a Palestinian state can bring stability throughout the current crisis, and it has done nothing to interfere with the Hamas-allied, Iran-backed Houthis of Yemen as they attack shipping in the Red Sea, despite Beijing’s clear interest in keeping those shipping lanes open.
Palestinian leaders and allies, such as researcher Razan Shawamreh to Eastern Mediterranean University, think China could “do more” to push for a ceasefire in Gaza.
“The Palestinian sense of marginalization and vulnerability, stemming from U.S. policies that support Israel’s crimes, have prompted them to find potential alternatives for support and solidarity, and they find it in China,” Shawamreh told the SCMP.
Like all Palestinian advocates, Shawamreh forgot about the 10/7 atrocities completely and did not dwell on how the actions of Hamas might have contributed to that “Palestinian sense of marginalization and vulnerability.” As far as he was concerned, the situation in Gaza is purely a power play and Chinese dictator Xi Jinping could be leaning harder on Israel to end “the collective punishment against the people in Gaza,” as he described the Israeli response to Hamas terror in November.
“I contend that [China] can engage in serious bilateral discussions with both parties, extending beyond its peace proposals, given the positive regard in which both sides of the conflict hold China, in recognition of its rising influence,” Shawamreh said.
Research fellow Zoon Ahmed Khan of Beijing’s Center for China and Globalization agreed that Xi could do more, crediting China with being “historically sympathetic towards the Palestinian cause while maintaining pragmatic relations and broadened engagement with Israel.”
Shawamreh implied the United States is the big stumbling block for China becoming Gaza peacemaker because, while the Palestinians strongly prefer Beijing as a mediator for negotiations, Israel gets $300 billion a year in U.S. military and economic aid, so the Israelis would not allow Beijing to muscle Washington away from the negotiating table.
This cynical analysis willfully ignores the fact that Israel is fighting Hamas to avenge thousands of sadistic rapes and murders, and to prevent thousands more, so altering its military trajectory is not a matter of either Xi Jinping or President Joe Biden tugging on the right strings.
China has also openly expressed support for Hamas terrorism, as the SCMP duly noted:
On Thursday – the fourth day of hearings at the International Court of Justice – China expressed support for the right of Palestinians to engage in “armed struggle” against Israel, stressing that it could not be equated with terrorism.
“In pursuit of the right to self-determination [the Palestinian people have the right to the] use of force to resist foreign oppression and to complete the establishment of the Palestinian state,” Ma Xinmin, a Chinese foreign ministry legal adviser, said.
This would be roughly comparable to Israel insisting the oppressed Uyghur Muslims have a right to wage an “armed struggle” against the brutal Chinese regime and then expecting China to let Israel mediate negotiations with the Uyghurs. To put it mildly, the Chinese would not go for that.
Another thing Hamas apologists miss about China’s position in the Middle East is that Beijing worked very hard to cultivate influence with various regional powers and some of them have far more maximalist positions on the Palestinian question than Beijing does. If the Chinese did assert themselves as brokers, they would find themselves choosing between rejection by Israel, or alienating the hardline anti-Israel powers they have been romancing for years.
Rula Shadeed, co-director of the Palestine Institute for Public Diplomacy, missed this point when she told the SCMP that China could leverage its economic relationship with Israel to gain political leverage.
“The trade relationship between China and Israel has been ongoing, for example. There has not been anything that was stopped, no calls for summoning the Israeli ambassador. There was not even mentions or threats of cutting ties,” Shadeed said – prompting her SCMP correspondents to point out that China did talk about cutting off shipments to Israel last month, and the Israelis immediately summoned the Chinese ambassador to complain.
China is unlikely to use economic leverage on behalf of Hamas precisely because it knows the Israelis are serious about neutralizing the threat to their security and China would only embarrass itself by trying to bully or buy them off. As seen in the comments above, China has gone remarkably far on behalf of the Palestinians already; pushing any harder would have sharply diminishing returns.
Tricontinental Institute for Social Research director Vijay Prahsad amusingly thought it was “perplexing” that Hamas allies like China have not been able to talk the U.N. into declaring a “no-fly zone over Gaza” or a “full arms embargo” against Israel. Beijing is unlikely to fritter away its carefully accumulated credibility by making such delusional and futile proposals. Imagine the split screens as China demands an arms embargo against Israel while the latest gigantic cache of illegal Hamas weapons is hauled out from beneath a school in Gaza.
China is doing what it can to tip the scales in favor of Hamas, such as by speaking in favor of Palestinian terrorism at the International Court of Justice (ICJ) and painting the rape-and-murder spree of October 7 as a legitimate act of “resistance to foreign oppression.” Hamas wholeheartedly applauded the Chinese emissary’s remarks on Saturday.
The Jerusalem Post saw this provocative speech to the ICJ as part of China’s “pivot” to the Palestinians after trying to develop “warmer relations with Israel.”
The Israeli government responded by essentially telling the Chinese to be ashamed of themselves for making such an “unfortunate statement.”
“The laws of war do not permit the systematic and deliberate attack of civilians or the use of civilians as human shields, two war crimes that Hamas commits in the name of ‘armed struggle,’” the Israeli Foreign Ministry pointed out.
“At the present time, the Chinese statement could be interpreted as support for the murderous terrorist attack committed by Hamas on October 7th,” the Foreign Ministry added.
This heated exchange suggests China has already lost whatever influence it might have over the Israelis.
Foreign Policy suggested in early February that, at this point, China is mostly putting on a pro-Palestinian show to milk the Israel-Hamas conflict for more political credibility with the “Global South” developing nations, which are not pleased with America’s energetic defense of Israel. The last thing China wants is to get dragged into making security commitments to the Palestinians. It wants to carp at the United States and use the situation to push developing nations further out of the American-European orbit.
“They feel that this is going to further undermine the U.S. in the eyes of the rest of the world, in the parts of the world that they care about. This plays right into their strategy for the Chinese – to show how isolated the Americans are, to show how they’re out of sync with the rest of the world, and just show the hypocrisy of the Americans,” Eric Olander of the China Global South Project said.