There is a growing trend worldwide where countries are becoming increasingly reliant on China for their economies and the US for their security.
Unsurprisingly, this has put many countries between a rock and a hard place. Unwilling to pick a side in the great power rivalry between China and the US, these countries are content to stand on the sidelines.
Israel is not one of these countries. Surrounded by countries whose citizens are overwhelmingly hostile to Israel, and fighting a “seven-front war”, Israel has to prioritize national security over economy, which means putting all its eggs in the American basket.
First, China is in no position to fill the US’s shoes in the Middle East. The US’s unequivocal support for Israel stems from their “special relationship.” China, on the other hand, does not share this “special relationship” and has no impulse to defend Israel.
While China would no doubt be interested in having an “unsinkable aircraft carrier” in the Middle East, as the US does, it is still way down on Beijing’s to-do list. For now, China’s priority remains in East Asia, namely taking back Taiwan, which it considers a renegade province that needs to be “reunified” with the mainland.
Aside from geopolitics, there is also the fact that, because of China’s political system and its lack of a Jewish diaspora, China is not susceptible to Israeli influence. And even if China were willing to defend Israel, it is in no position to do so. Following the US’s “pivot to Asia” in 2012, the geopolitical stranglehold on China has become tighter and tighter.
Japan, India, Australia and others have all jumped on board to contain China. Consequently, despite becoming the largest navy in the world in terms of numbers, China is far from ruling the high seas and its navy remains tied down in East Asia. Until this changes, China cannot recast its attention elsewhere.
Second, recent developments prove that China is not as impartial as it claims. Despite the atrocities Hamas committed against civilians on October 7 last year, China has danced around condemning Hamas, let alone recognizing Hamas as a terrorist organization.
To this day, China has refrained from singling out Hamas for criticism. Comments such as “China strongly condemns acts of violence against civilians” criticize not only Hamas but also Israel for inflicting collateral damage on civilians in Gaza.
Given that Hamas, an offshoot of the Muslim Brotherhood, is not exactly welcomed with open arms by Arab countries. China’s reluctance to single out Hamas for criticism is puzzling.
It could mean one of two things: China is unwilling to draw the ire of Arab countries and will leave nothing up to chance, or China is not aware that Hamas is unpopular not only in the Arab world but also in Gaza, where they ruled before the war.
Whatever the reason, at the end of the day, China’s silence following the October 7 attack has irked Israel to no end, causing Sino-Israeli relations to plummet to what some see as an all-time low.
It does not appear that China is deliberately trying to anger Israel, as it has mainly followed the usual script, calling for all sides to exercise restraint and an end to the violence and resumption of talks based on the two-state solution. This suggests that China believes it is performing an astute balancing act.
However, when China began directly calling out Israel for overacting in Gaza, while staying mum about the brutality Hamas has committed, never mentioning Hamas by name in connection to the crime, it became clear that China is no longer neutral.
Ever since Donald Trump first took office, the US has been trying to coax countries to distance themselves from China. But after it became clear that most of the Global South has turned against Israel, and that the US will continue pledging “ironclad support” for it amid the Gaza war controversy, China saw an opportunity to turn the tables on the US.
In the past, China prioritized profiting from Middle East conflicts, going as far as selling arms to both sides of a war, as was the case during the Iran-Iraq War.
This time, China believes that it will gain more by picking a side, namely by jumping on the bandwagon with the Global South. Hence, China has been using the opportunity to criticize the US for its hypocrisy to undermine the US’s global image.
Contrary to popular belief, China is not in the same weight class as the US. China has a smaller economy and a weaker military than the US. But most importantly, China lacks the same ideological appeal as the US.
Having benefited immensely from globalization, China is afraid that if the US pulls countries away from doing business with it, China will revert to being an isolated and poor hermit kingdom.
China thus hopes to prevent the US from forming an anti-China coalition, and in the best-case scenario, rally Global South and other countries around it with common grievances with the US, which in theory will tilt the balance of global power in its favor.
So far, it seems to be working in important places. For instance, Saudi Arabia recently all but turned down signing a defense pact with the US that sought to pressure Riyadh to stop purchasing Chinese arms and cap Chinese investment.
As long as the US is unable to isolate China, what matter does it make to China if Israel – a country whose territory, economy and population is dwarfed by the Global South – gets caught in the crossfire?
Yang Xiaotong is assistant researcher at a Beijing-based independent think tank.