{"id":695467,"date":"2023-10-12T16:50:18","date_gmt":"2023-10-12T23:50:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/chinadigitaltimes.net\/?p=695467"},"modified":"2023-10-19T17:15:52","modified_gmt":"2023-10-20T00:15:52","slug":"china-sidesteps-israel-hamas-conflict","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/chinadigitaltimes.net\/2023\/10\/china-sidesteps-israel-hamas-conflict\/","title":{"rendered":"China Sidesteps Israel-Hamas Conflict"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

The recent escalation of Israeli-Hamas conflict in Gaza has incited fierce reactions around the world and put Beijing in an uncomfortable position. The latest figures<\/a> show that at least 1,300 Israelis were killed by Hamas\u2019 terrorist attack on Saturday, and at least 1,400 Palestinians were killed by the Israeli government\u2019s retaliatory strikes, while over 338,000 Palestinians in Gaza have been displaced. While China attempts to maintain positive relations with both Israel and Palestine (and their respective allies), its official response to the crisis garnered criticism for its non-committal tone<\/a> and for the alleged pro-Palestinian bias in its state-media coverage.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

After Hamas\u2019 attack, China\u2019s Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MFA) released a statement<\/a>: \u201cChina is deeply concerned over the current escalation of tensions and violence between Palestine and Israel. We call on relevant parties to remain calm, exercise restraint and immediately end the hostilities to protect civilians and avoid further deterioration of the situation.\u201d The MFA statement, which neither mentioned Hamas by name nor described the attack as terrorism, also declared, \u201cThe fundamental way out of the conflict lies in implementing the two-state solution.\u201d (The Chinese government itself has been consistently opposed<\/a> to any \u201ctwo-state solution\u201d in PRC-related cases, such as Taiwan or Hong Kong, and it has lobbied other countries<\/a> to support its draconian policies in Xinjiang under the guise of combatting terrorism<\/a>.) In the days that followed, MFA spokespersons reiterated the same language<\/a> calling for peace talks and a two-state solution to address both parties\u2019 \u201clegitimate concerns.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Compared to the official response by several Western governments<\/a> that offered strong support to Israel, China\u2019s was more reserved, which was seen<\/a> by many Israelis as taking the side of Hamas or Palestine. China is \u201cclearly afraid of offending the Arab side<\/a>,\u201d said Robert Ford, a former U.S. ambassador to Syria now with the Middle East Institute. Some analysts and journalists described the Chinese response as \u201ctoothless<\/a>.\u201d James Pomfret, Joe Cash, and Chen Lin from Reuters reported on reactions from analysts who argued that China\u2019s muted response reveals it to be averse to real conflict mediation<\/strong><\/a>:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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“Certainly it does poke a hole in the type of propaganda … of China being this kind of massive player in the Middle East,” said Bill Figueroa, an assistant professor at the University of Groningen in the Netherlands and an expert on China-Middle East relations.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

[…] “China under Xi (Jinping) wants to be respected and admired everywhere, including in the Middle East, but it is ultimately unwilling to do what it will take to resolve the really hard regional security issues,” said Steve Tsang, director of the SOAS China Institute in London. “It goes for the low-hanging fruits and basically stops there.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

[…] “China is very successful in a stable environment in the Middle East when it’s possible to broker reconciliation agreements between Saudi Arabia and Iran,” said Jean-Loup Samaan, Senior Research Fellow at the Middle East Institute of the National University of Singapore.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“But when it comes to conflict management, that’s a very different situation,” Samaan added. “And I don’t think China ever wanted to play that role.” [Source<\/strong><\/a>]<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

Summarizing the situation for Foreign Policy, James Palmer described the Chinese public\u2019s divided reaction to the conflict<\/a><\/strong>:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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In China, the public is somewhat divided over the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. In the early 2000s, there was strong support within China for people in Muslim countries and the Arab world, seen as the victims of U.S. imperialism. But Islamophobia has grown among the Chinese public\u2014with state encouragement\u2014since major unrest in Xinjiang in 2013 and a terrorist attack the following year and as the state has adopted genocidal policies in Xinjiang. That has led to a wave of support for Israel in China.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Comments on the Weibo page for the Israeli Embassy in China were split between messages of support and attacks on Israeli policy, with some antisemitic posts mixed in. (Antisemitism has grown online in China, noticeably since 2009, when a book based on a conspiracy theory blaming Jews for the global financial crisis became a bestseller.) Almost missing from the conversation were two Chinese workers reportedly killed in the Hamas attacks. [Source<\/strong><\/a>]<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

Former Global Times editor-in-chief Hu Xijin proclaimed that the \u201cChinese public possesses very extensive calm and rationality over Israeli-Palestinian conflict<\/a>.\u201d On Twitter, however, VOA\u2019s Wenhao Ma shared screenshots of other Weibo conversations held after the attack, many of which displayed blatant antisemitism:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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On the Chinese-Israeli girl abducted by Hamas, netizens wrote they don\u2019t consider her Chinese and question why the Israeli government is trying to get China involved by posting news about her. pic.twitter.com\/ZfaauE8C5E<\/a><\/p>— Wenhao (@ThisIsWenhao) October 9, 2023<\/a><\/blockquote>