China’s position on Israel leading to a cold war
The most far-reaching ramification of recent events is the inexorable advance of a world splitting into two poles
By
ALICIA GARCIA HERREROOCTOBER 17, 2023
Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas shakes hands after presenting a medallion to Chinese President Xi Jinping during a signing ceremony at the Great Hall of the People in Beijing, China, on July 18, 2017. Image: Pool / Twitter Screengrab
The Hamas terrorist group’s indiscriminate attack on Israel on October 7 is much more than that, as has been made clear not only by its intensity and cruelty, but by Israel’s reaction to it. As with the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, and the invasion of Ukraine by Russia, this is an event that will change the course of the world.
In these three crucial episodes of recent history, China has played a significant role, showing how much US-China relations have deteriorated and where the world is heading: a cold war.
China’s response to the September 11 terrorist attacks was to support the US, as Russia did, at the United Nations Security Council. In fact, both nations had much to gain from the US determination to end Islamic terrorism given their own domestic problems: Chechnya in the case of Russia and the Uyghurs in the case of China.
China was still able to continue with its economic model of state-led capitalism based on planning and industrial policy, despite the promise that it would become a market economy after joining the World Trade Organization in 2001. So while the US remained mired in its anti-terrorist crusade, China became its main trading partner, with a $400 billion trade surplus in just 10 years.
By then, and after a huge financial crisis that played havoc on the American financial system in 2008, US president Barack Obama’s administration began to understand that an open-door policy with China could not continue unconditionally.
With his announcement of the pivot to Asia in 2012, Obama acknowledged that the US had wasted too much time bogged down in the Middle East without realizing that a new power with global hegemonic ambitions was rising, namely China.
Rise of China acknowledged
Since then, the dream of an open-door relationship with China was shattered by Donald Trump coming to power in 2017, moving immediately to contain China through tariffs and barriers to technology transfer, which have not gone away under President Joe Biden, but quite the contrary.
What was important in all these years that the US looked the other way was that China became the largest trading partner of most countries in the world while the US continued to be retrenched from international and trade agreements.
By the time Russia decided to invade Ukraine in February 2022, the US had already lost a great deal of economic leadership, hit not only by the 2008 financial crisis but also by the Covid-19 pandemic, as well as by politics, exemplified in its withdrawal from Afghanistan.
The European Union, in turn, had one more shock in its heyday, the
sovereign debt crisis of 2010, which left it unable to respond adequately to Russia’s annexation of Crimea in 2014.
From there, Russia’s invasion of Ukraine surprised the world, and so did China’s ambiguous position, if not complacent with Russia. One might even argue that, without China’s tacit support for Russia, the conflict might already have been resolved in Ukraine’s favor given Russia’s extremely high dependence on China.
More generally, the war in Ukraine has increasingly separated the West not only from Russia, but also from China, not only because of its position on Russia but because of its rallying the emerging and developing countries – which China packs in this strange concept of “Global South” – to align against the US for the sake of their colonial past.
In this context, the recent attack on Israel was not only hugely painful – as Israel’s response in Gaza is too, unfortunately – but is also provoking tectonic movements in the Middle East to which China is no stranger.
China and the Middle East
First, it seems hard to believe that Hamas was able to attack Israel so surprisingly but also so accurately and lethally, without any support. All eyes are on Iran, whose foreign minister, Hossein Amir-Abdollahian, met this weekend with one of Hamas’ leaders in Qatar, threatening Israel over the consequences of its attacks on Palestine.
As if this were not enough, Saudi Arabia – which until the time of the attack was in negotiations with the US to reach an agreement with Israel for the normalization of its diplomatic relations – does not seem to want to continue with this process, but quite the opposite based on the unexpected recent call between the leaders of Saudi Arabia and Iran.
Only a couple of years ago an attack by Hamas of this caliber would have instilled fears among Saudi’s leaders about Iran’s aggressiveness given the historical competition between the two. However, the recent agreement of mutual respect brokered by China seems to be working, at least so far, so that even Saudi seems complacent with such terrorist attacks.
In that sense, the position that China’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs made public in the wake of the attacks on Israel, and even more so the recent statement by its foreign minister, Wang Yi, make it crystal clear that China is not on Israel’s side but rather on that of Palestine.
The key here is that China, once again, uses rhetoric that opposes that of the US, as it did in the wake of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
This reality is not at all surprising. Since the time of Mao Zedong, China has maintained a pro-Palestinian position. More recently, China has moved from being just one of several trading partners for the Middle East to its main strategic partner in the face of the US power vacuum.
Moreover, until the arrival of the Biden administration, China would have been more reluctant to display a pro-Palestinian bias, since Israel, for a decade, has allowed the sale of dual-use companies to China, but things have changed recently. The Biden administration’s tougher stance as regards Israel’s core technology transfer to China probably gave China more freedom to instigate an Iran-Saudi deal.
This is surely not something Israel must feel comfortable with at this juncture, nor should the US or the European Union. Beyond the obvious risks for Israel, an Iran-Saudi rapprochement, coupled with Russia’s familiar shadow behind Iran, might end up in a coordinated cut in oil production as a tool of economic coercion for Israel to abandon its intention to attack Gaza.
Two poles
Beyond the fact that such a shock could endanger the painful processes of disinflation that have taken place in the West in the last couple of years, the most far-reaching ramification is the inexorable advance of a world crashing into two poles.
With this new shock, the US will be able to identify its allies even more clearly than ever. These include the European Union and, no doubt, Israel, but also Australia, Japan, and even the Philippines and Taiwan.
The other pole is centered on China’s in opposition to the US and in a winner-takes-all mentality on both sides. The Middle East might sleepwalk into China’s pole while others watch how things end.
To conclude, it seems important at this point that the West understands what historical moment it is living in. What may seem like a mere “flashback” of the Cold War, which we thought was buried, is a reality, despite greater economic interdependence.
In short, the attacks on Israel will be remembered as one of three major events – together with the terrorist attacks of September 11 and the invasion of Ukraine – that will have preceded, and defined, the breakdown of the global order into two major blocs, bringing us, once again, to a cold war, which huge consequences, not only for investors and businesses, but also for our societies.
The Hamas terrorist group’s indiscriminate attack on Israel on October 7 is much more than that, as has been made clear not only by its intensity and
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