In the last five years, millions of words have been written about Israel, its wars and policies, Zionism, Jews, Judaism, and surging antisemitism. But with regard to China, with its population of nearly a billion and a half people, little has been written on these topics. Why?

First, there are very few Jews in China, and it denies that it harbors any antisemitism. Second, China is perceived not to matter much in the global discussion about Jews and antisemitism. And third, there are probably no more than five academic experts on antisemitism who speak and read Chinese.

The Jewish People’s Policy Institute’s new publication, Chinese Antisemitism 2021-2025, Its Origins and Purposes, fills an important gap. It contradicts assumptions that antisemitism is not a Chinese issue and that China’s position on this subject does not matter.

Since 2020, China has taken a more hostile public stance against Israel and advised Israeli contacts to take a low profile in China. There was no single reason for this; rather, it resulted from the confluence of several factors. Israel, admonished by the United States, made Chinese investments, particularly in hi-tech and infrastructure projects, more difficult. The Chinese expressed their resentment quite openly. Second, China was in the midst of expanding its presence in the Arab Middle East, offering major economic cooperation and long-lasting political ties. A harder attitude against Israel was a cheap sweetener for such offers. And third, Israel’s domestic crisis eroded its “strongman” image in Chinese eyes. A country wracked by mass demonstrations and numerous ineffective elections could no longer be taken as seriously as it had been.

After the short 2021 Gaza war, a Chinese UN delegate accused Israel of war crimes. This was unusual. Antisemitic comments appeared in China’s media. In other words, antisemitism was not an isolated initiative, but part of a larger, coordinated policy trend. A second, stronger, and still unabated antisemitic wave hit in the wake of October 7. Antisemitism, not just criticism of Israel’s military conduct, surged in the official press and on social media platforms. The rhetoric was particularly vitriolic in China’s universities, which became key transmitters of antisemitic tropes. When a senior political figure pontificated that “political survival in the US” is “parasitically attached to Israel’s powerful Jewish forces,” he was trafficking in traditional antisemitic imagery; he did not lament Gaza’s children.

When a publishing house cancelled planned books on Jewish history, the whiff of Nazi Germany and Stalinist Russia was unmistakable. Still, it did not advance the case for a Palestinian state. Neither did the removal of memorial plaques from a former synagogue in a place where Jews once lived. Some manifestations of Chinese antisemitism looked Orwellian: wiping out the memory of long-dead Jews.

When a professor at Shanghai’s prestigious Fudan University complained that criticism of Israel’s “crimes” was impossible in the West because all public voices were “controlled by financial capitalists… a shadow empire,” he stuck an old antisemitic canard of Jewish media control on a fantasy image of today’s West. And when a well-known blogger who claimed to have 15 million followers quoted Adolf Hitler against the Jews, he closed a circle. In China, the monster returned to its starting point. No Chinese antisemitism originated in China; it was imported from countries with a Christian past, particularly Russia, or from Islam.

The spread of antisemitism in China’s media meant that it had been officially sanctioned. Conflating Israel and Zionism with Jews and Judaism is nothing new, but no other country controls and censors political speech as tightly as China does. It makes little sense for Jews to denounce university professors or managers of social media websites for antisemitism; they are controlled by the Communist Party and hence, the Government. All criticism of Russia’s Putin or of Muslim leaders was blocked, while denunciation of Israel was perfectly permissible, perhaps even encouraged. No constraints were placed on blaming Jewish money for its stranglehold on America. Anti-Israeli Qatar was granted financial control over some university faculties, and Al Jazeera inside China was unimpeded in partisan, one-sided reporting on the Middle East.

What does China hope to achieve by jettisoning links with Israel and the Jewish people? One explanation is linked to the less discussed Cold War between the United States and China. Whether Israel wants it or not – and it does not – it is inextricably tied to this confrontation. “We use Israel as a stick to beat the Americans,” said a Chinese official who was unexpectedly overheard.

Another explanation is China’s even more unmentionable fear of Islam. Muslim minorities – not just the Uyghurs – have revolted against Chinese rule more than once over the last two hundred years. China’s longest borders are with the Central Asian Muslim countries. China seeks to control them, but other candidates are waiting at the gates: Turkey, Russia, the United States, and even Israel. Moreover, 57 Muslim UN member states and their one hundred willing and unwilling supporters are seeking to dominate the international system.

Some point to China’s dependence on Middle Eastern oil, but this dependence is double-edged, and China has the stronger hand. Oil producers depend more on the Chinese market than China does on them. The sea lanes from the Middle East to China are what are most critical for Beijing, and so we return to the first of China’s concerns, the United States, more precisely, the US Navy.

Arguably, the most salient driver of China’s newfound antisemitism is its discovery of “Palestinianism,” the global revolutionary movement trying to focus Western energies on the destruction of Israel. It can perform a few tasks and must not perform a few others. Israel must remember Ben-Gurion’s exhortation to forge Israeli ties with China in the early 1960s when Beijing had even more contempt for the Jewish state.

Israel must be firm in its rejection of China’s official denials that it has become a breeding ground of antisemitism. Israel should build an alliance with the Jewish Diaspora against Chinese antisemitism and a Western political alliance to combat it. Jews across the world worry – and rightly so – about the reemergence of antisemitism, but know little about China’s contribution. Many countries important to China have Jewish communities that can and should make their voices heard in Beijing.

Western countries that have promised to fight antisemitism haven’t a clue about the scourge of the Chinese variant. This has to change. When a Chinese blogger recommends the bile of Adolf Hitler, Germany should act without equivocation. From lodging formal diplomatic protests to blacklisting them from entering Germany or the entire EU zone, it must act.

Finally, when it comes to Taiwan, Israel should have no illusion that it can play “carrot and stick” with China. Israel is too small, and the danger of getting dragged into the East Asian powder keg is too big. Israel must maintain its “One China” policy as it has always done. This means ignoring the urges and opportunities to help Taiwan improve its political situation, while strengthening non-political economic, cultural, and academic relations with Taiwan, including research on Chinese antisemitism.

As the world inaugurates 2026 with hopes of peace and prosperity, the antisemitism virus continues its international spread. China will have to choose. Is it wise to swim in a toxic river that has no genuine Chinese source? Will this truly advance China’s national and geopolitical interests?

Published in the Jerusalem Post

The post Antisemitism in China is not accidental, or marginal first appeared on The Jewish People Policy Institute.

Yin Zhiguang, a Professor of International Relations at Fudan University in Shanghai, advocates global “cultural decolonization” and strengthening the China-led Global South. His Marxist-Leninist rhetoric and Maoist appeals to the Third World appear to align closely with President Xi Jinping’s ideological framework.

While Yin consistently denounces the United States, the only other Western nation facing comparable criticism from him is Israel. According to widely accepted definitions, he expresses antisemitic views by applying unique double standards to Israel, suggesting global Jewish influence behind alleged misdeeds, and condemning Israel for actions also attributed to China.

In recent interviews, Yin has identified pivotal moments that shaped his political consciousness. For instance, the widespread anti-Chinese protests originating in Tibet in 2008 profoundly unsettled him. Equally disturbing was the inhumane exploitation he witnessed as assistant professor at Zayed University in the UAE, where impoverished Egyptian, Jordanian, and Yemeni laborers suffered severe mistreatment. However, neither Tibet nor inter-Arab exploitation involved Israel or Jews.

His reaction to Israel’s September 2024 pager attack against Hezbollah terrorists was revealing: “How dare the West speak of civilization? Israel’s atrocities reveal that Western civilization has never had a moral bottom line.”

This statement reflects a broader conflation in the Chinese imagination between the West and the Jews. Two decades ago, young Chinese generally admired Western civilization, and particularly American culture, and often associated Jews positively with Western intellectual and economic achievements.

However, the US-China trade war (2018) and subsequent diplomatic tensions significantly eroded perceptions of the West in China, impacting views of the Jews by extension. The Gaza wars (2021, 2023-5) provided China with additional opportunities to criticize the United States and Israel.

Yin’s accusations are at times exaggerated and unsubstantiated, such as asserting that “Israel has deliberately assassinated countless Palestinian poets.” He also described Israeli Jews as their parents’ Nazi prosecutors, the “armed guards of Gaza’s open-air concentration camp.”

It is unlikely that Yin has visited Gaza, and such claims could reflect an attempt to deflect attention from human rights criticisms against China: The Cultural Revolution-era mass persecutions and recent internment camps for Muslim Uyghurs.

At the end of the article, Yin emphasizes historical allegations against Israel: “Israel’s colonial rule over Palestine has lasted 77 years,” implying Israel’s creation in 1948 was inherently illegitimate.

In an article he published less than two weeks after the October 7 massacre, he claimed, “Israel’s regime is both an outpost of a contemporary capitalist global empire and a time-capsule of the 19th century capitalist colonial empires.” This echoes slogans familiar from Western anti-Zionist discourse.

Yin further asserted that Western criticism of Israel is silenced by financial capitalists…a shadow empire”, referencing antisemitic tropes about secret Jewish influence.

Yin manipulates Chinese history as he does Jewish history. He writes that in 1958, “China launched a rapid campaign of cultural decolonization”, requiring “the stimulus of new ideas,” but omits that Mao Zedong’s Great Leap Forward, initiated the same year, resulted in tens of millions of deaths due to forced industrialization and collectivization. He inaccurately claims: “China has never been alone in this world…always a member of the Afro-Asian nations,” overlooking China’s centuries-long self-imposed isolation since the Ming dynasty.

The author exemplifies trends in Chinese academia under Xi Jinping’s prolonged rule, where historical narratives are frequently distorted, a common practice among Communist Parties since Lenin.

It is unclear if Yin influences Chinese government positions or widespread antisemitism in Chinese social media. While China lacks deep-rooted historical antisemitism, Yin obtained his Ph.D. from the University of Cambridge in 2011, where, in 2024, some students now openly demonstrate support for Hamas, calling for “intifada until victory,” and threaten their Jewish classmates.

These ideas from Western campuses may have resonated within China’s elite universities, illustrating antisemitism as a cultural phenomenon spreading from the West to China.

This article serves as an introduction to Tuvia Gering’s book Liberating the Mind, published here.

The post A Note on Yin Zhiguang’s “Liberating the Mind” first appeared on The Jewish People Policy Institute.

The announcement that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu accepted an invitation from President Xi Jinping to make a state visit to China has triggered some commotion among Israel’s political experts and journalists, most of it negative. Netanyahu wanted to “snub” US President Joe Biden or “annoy” him. He wanted to show that he was “giving up” on Biden because he had other options, exactly like Saudi Arabia. All this was just revenge because Biden hadn’t yet invited him to the White House. It would be a serious “strategic mistake,” some have warned, Israel risks paying a high price, this was a betrayal of the American alliance, no less, and so on and so forth. It was easy to foresee these lamentations, so Netanyahu insisted at the start of the controversy that Israel’s alliance with America was ironclad, stronger than ever and that America was irreplaceable.

Five months of the most profound political crisis in Israel’s history has narrowed the vision of many. Beyond the mass demonstrations, the growing rifts in Israeli society, and the threats and insults, the rest of the world had disappeared for many Israelis – except of course, for the shadow of Israel’s big, disapproving protector, America. During these months of turmoil, China entered the Middle East with swifter and larger political strides than any other foreign country had ever done in peacetime. China’s president traveled to Saudi Arabia to greet the 21 leaders of the Arab world and offer them support. Soon after, he hosted the Iranian president in Beijing and reassured him too of China’s solidarity. Then China announced it had brokered a rapprochement between Saudi Arabia and Iran after seven years of hostility, and finally, Beijing received the aging Palestinian president Mahmoud Abbas like a king, repeated China’s unwavering support for the just claims of the Palestinians and proposed China as the most appropriate peace mediator with Israel. During these visits, Israel was rarely mentioned by name. It was mildly criticized but never threatened.

Israel’s media treated these events as a continuation of the foreign noise that often accompanies the country’s internal commotion. However, while Israel’s public showed little interest in China, the Chinese showed interest in Israel. An INSS research report found that the Chinese media continually reported on Israel’s internal strife. This was unusual. Generally, the Chinese media do not like to emphasize civil unrest and mass protests in foreign countries lest the Chinese people be exposed to “inappropriate” ideas. But it seems that Israel’s image in the eyes of the Chinese leadership was changing, and reporting on these troubles was a sign of that. Was Israel still the strong, united country that could rely on American assistance in all circumstances? Was Netanyahu still in the driver’s seat?

This is why Netanyahu must visit President Xi. He could mention an old Chinese proverb to his host: “Cross the river slowly by feeling the stones.” He could add that Israel is still one of these stones, and a very big one. River crossers are warned to be cautious lest they hurt themselves. While Arab and Muslim leaders are meeting Xi on an almost monthly basis, Netanyahu hasn’t met with him since 2017, nor has any other Israeli leader.

Six years is a long time in a fast-changing world. Particularly in this case: Xi has amassed powers like no Chinese president since Mao Zedong. He dictates China’s foreign policy. He decided many years ago, after listening to his many Arab visitors, that Palestine was the unsolved root problem of the Middle East. He has said so many times since. Not everyone in China agrees, but no one will contradict Xi. The space for dissent in China’s top echelons has become very limited. But Netanyahu could dissent, politely.

Xi is not hostile to Jews or Judaism. He once denounced the rise of antisemitism in Europe and praised the Jewish contribution to the civilizations of the world. Xi and Netanyahu could find some historical common ground. Xi often refers to China’s past “humiliation,” a pain that should resonate in Jewish ears. From there, it’s not a far leap to Iran’s nuclear threat, its hatred of Israel, and its denial of the Shoah.

Raising these issues with lower Chinese officials hits a brick wall. Has anybody raised them with Xi Jinping? It is unlikely that President Biden or Secretary Antony Blinken did so when they met with him. They cannot deny Netanyahu the right – no, the duty – to speak to Xi about existential fears and not only trade relations. Nobody accused the leaders of Germany, France, or other NATO countries of betraying America when they visited Beijing. Israel should not be suspected of doing so either.

First published by ‘The Times of Israel’.

The post Yes, Bibi should go to Beijing. In fact, he must first appeared on The Jewish People Policy Institute.

On March 10, China’s top diplomat, Wang Yi, flanked by senior security officials from Iran and Saudi Arabia, announced that the two countries had agreed to restore diplomatic relations. The image of the three side by side was reminiscent of similar images from Washington over many years: presidents Jimmy Carter, Bill Clinton and Donald Trump flanked by the Arab and Israeli leaders of the time, celebrating peace, the Oslo Accords and the Abraham Accords.

The Chinese organizers, masters of ceremony, were sending a clear message: what America could do, China can also do. For decades, China has produced peace plans, held peace forums and sent peace envoys to the Middle East. The difference was that America’s actions changed Israel, the Middle East and the world, while China’s changed nothing. Is something new happening?

The March event triggered a shock wave across the world. Most commentators agreed that there were three big winners, China, Iran and Saudi Arabia, one big loser, Israel, and maybe one small loser, the United States.

China demonstrated that it is a major player in the Middle East and possibly beyond, and that it can achieve goals that are out of reach for America.

Iran spectacularly wrecked American sanctions as the Saudi finance minister announced that his country would soon start investing in Iran. A defensive alliance between Israel and the Gulf states now seems very remote.

Saudi Arabia demonstrated, also spectacularly, that it could look after itself, had options in addition to the US and could treat America with the same indifference with which it had been treated by some previous American administrations.

Israel briefly woke up from its domestic turmoil, acknowledged its strategic defeat, blamed America’s Joe Biden and the opposition party’s Yair Lapid and then returned to its turmoil.

The Americans did not quite know whether they are winners or losers, which illustrates Biden’s unclear and contradictory Middle East policies. Five full days after the Beijing event, Secretary of State Antony Blinken emerged to welcome any reduction of tensions. Just a short time before, a US Defense Department official had announced new sanctions against Iran.

Long-term geopolitical implications of the Beijing accord

Commentators did not notice two long-term geopolitical implications of the Beijing accord. First, it is not a stand-alone event but part of something much larger. China is slowly revealing a new, comprehensive plan for the Middle East. In January 2022, an article in the Communist Party’s Global Times advised the Arabs that they would be better off with China as their main partner instead of America. Then in December 2022, President Xi Jinping visited Saudi Arabia and met with the leaders of the Arab world.

A long statement issued after the recent summit demanded a Palestinian state in line with the Arab position. This was nothing new. Iran’s president, Ebrahim Raisi, made a state visit to Beijing in February 2023. A joint statement demanded that Israel open its nuclear activities to the control of the IAEA. This was new. No Chinese president had ever signed a statement critical of Israel, certainly not one co-signed by Iran.

And then came the Beijing-mediated accord between Iran and Saudi Arabia. What are the next stages of China’s master plan? Trying to impose the 1967 borders on Israel? Coercing Israel to disclose its nuclear secrets?

And here is the second long-term geopolitical implication of the Beijing accord and the preceding events: China seems to be turning more actively against Israel. There are other signs, for example, China’s increased anti-Israeli activism in the UN. Asking why China is becoming more adversarial is the wrong question.

The right question is: Why did China wait so long? Since 1951, a year after Israel recognized the People’s Republic of China, the United States has involved itself in the China-Israel relationship. For 20 of the last 72 years (1979-1999), Israel had a green light for arms exports to China.

But for more than 50 years, Israel has gotten red lights from Washington, first against diplomatic, then defense and finally, many investment and technological agreements with China. Israel learned that the indispensable political and military support it gets from America comes with strings attached, including the reduction of China links.

As the conflict between the superpowers heats up, America would like more support from Israel in the struggle, which means that China will likely regard Israel increasingly as an American pawn. Israel suffers growing collateral damage from a conflict it did not create and cannot influence. America has reasons to prohibit certain Israeli technology exports but it should not cause China and Israel to become enemies.

China’s Middle East policies could seriously harm Israel’s interests. Whether America wants to leave the Middle East, as many suspect, or whether it wants to stay, this would not be in America’s own national interest.

First published by The Jerusalem Post

The post The Price Israel Has to Pay for the China-America Conflict Is Rising first appeared on The Jewish People Policy Institute.

When Israeli officials claim the country’s controversial Judicial overhaul poses no harm to Israel’s national security, they almost certainly have Israel’s essential strategic relationship with the United States in mind. How the Middle East and Asia view Israel’s current troubles and their possible impact on its national security is a different matter.

A few days after Israel’s November 2022 elections, the country began to slip into its most serious domestic crisis since its founding in 1948. At the same time, the Chinese were entering the Middle East in major, visible ways. They did not walk into the region in military boots as the Russians do, they came in soft silk slippers.

On December 7, President Xi arrived in Saudi Arabia for a long-awaited three-day state visit. He met the 21 main leaders of the Arab world. Forty of the agreements that were signed position China as a key partner of the Arab world. They demonstrate that Saudi Arabia has options other than America, reiterate China’s traditional support for a Palestinian state in accordance with the 1967 “borders” with East Jerusalem as its capital, and criticize Iran.

The meeting’s most interesting novelty are four relatively harsh references to Iran. Iran is admonished for its “destabilizing” activities in the Middle East and is asked to “fully cooperate” with the IAEA to prove that its nuclear build-up is peaceful.

These critiques infuriated the Iranians, which in turn triggered Chinese appeasement maneuvers. China’s ambassador to Teheran, Chang Hua, waxed poetic: “Love between old friends will endure.” To calm Tehran’s “deep irritation,” China invited Iran’s President Raisi for a two-day state visit, which took place in mid-February. In addition to a flurry of cooperation promises, the joint summit statement included criticism of Israel, the only country mentioned by name. Israel was urged to join the Non-Proliferation Treaty and place its nuclear facilities under IAEA safeguards.

To add insult to injury, the statement commends Iran’s “commitment to…denuclearization,” although the Ayatollahs had shredded that commitment years ago. The finger-pointing at Israel was something new. Never before had a Chinese president signed a summit statement rebuking Israel, particularly one co-signed by an Iranian president who, more than once, had threatened Israel’s annihilation. China’s intention was to hit America by cynically striking out at Washington’s closest ally in the region.

China was also appeasing Iranian anger because it had disparaged Iran’s nuclear policy in the Saudi summit resolutions. That resolution did not mention Israel’s nuclear policy. The Arabs did not ask for it, which is significant. Their problem is Iran.

Foreign observers spoke of a Chinese “balancing act” between the Arabs and Iran. But ancient Jewish folk wisdom says: “You cannot dance at two weddings at the same time.” Well, apparently the Chinese can. For a time. Until the music stops at one of the weddings, or at both. China has no deep and genuine good or bad wishes for the Arabs, Iran, or Israel. It uses all three for its own main objective, its grand game against America.

There is, in addition, an ominous global consequence of the China-Iran summit. Numerous cooperation agreements, some with technological security implications, alongside the swipe at Israel, empower Iran and give it more legitimacy. They enlarge a crack that allows Iran to break through the wall the United States has erected to surround it. This crack in the wall was first opened by Russia. Russia’s successful demand for Iranian weapons for use against Ukraine has changed Iran’s position. It is now a continental geopolitical player beyond the Middle East. How will Iran use the instruments China has allegedly promised to supply, for example face-recognition technologies to identify regime opponents, and access to a major Chinese spy satellite? Will Iran use both on a global scale?

Why then bring Israel’s internal crisis into a discussion about China? Israel is consumed by its domestic turmoil. Its media barely reviewed the two Chinese summits and did not pick up on the references to Israel. The Chinese media do not report on Israel’s crisis, but policymakers including President Xi are certainly aware of it. Their main preoccupation is their struggle with America, a Cold War in all but name. Israel must be aware that its image as a havoc-ridden country in decline will encourage China to increase its support for Israel’s enemies, particularly Iran. Why? Because they are also America’s enemies. Israel will likely pay a growing price for the Sino-American confrontation.

First published by ‘The Times of Israel’.

The post Hello, has anyone noticed China’s pivot against Israel? first appeared on The Jewish People Policy Institute.

What are the consequences of the Sino-American conflict for Israel and the Jewish people? How do China’s reactions to the American challenge affect relations with Israel? This question is part of a broader global picture that must first be reviewed.

The change of the US administration in 2021 did not mitigate the conflict between the two powers, contrary to what the Chinese had hoped when the US invited two of their most senior policy makers to a first high-level meeting on American soil, in Alaska (March 18-19, 2021). There, the public encounter between the two sides began with an exchange of bitter rebukes, rare in the history of diplomacy. The Chinese were visibly taken aback. For China, this was perhaps a watershed event; one that seems to have confirmed their conviction that Western and particularly American hostility was deeply entrenched. On the American side, President Biden knew that opposition to China – to curb its violations of the “global order” in American parlance and its tension with neighbors – was one of two major policy issues on which Democrats and Republicans agreed, apart from a shared wish to focus on domestic issues and leave the Middle East. Biden had every reason not to open his flank to Republican or general public scorn by appearing to be “soft” on China.

At home, both countries kept struggling with the health, economic, social and public opinion fall-out of the ongoing Covid pandemic. Both threw their best assets into the health battle: China its enormous capacity of mass mobilization and control, the United States its great science and technology potential, as well as its freedom of thought, communication, and speech, the latter affecting the fight against the pandemic both positively and negatively. The earlier scientific consensus in the West that the coronavirus jumped from wild animals and not from a Chinese lab is now in doubt. Scientists do not have all the answers they hoped to get from China.

In both countries, the economy is growing again. The economic relations between the two are complex and in America less controllable by government dictate. America’s large companies have decided to remain in the Chinese market. Currently, the trade and payment relations between the two are not to America’s advantage. Their balance is tilting again in China’s favor, as it did when Trump decided to intervene. American consumer demand for Chinese products is apparently unstoppable, even by tariffs, whereas China is greatly reducing its purchases of US agricultural products. In general, Chinese investments in America have declined and, as a consequence of the pandemic, Chinese tourists are no longer streaming to America to spend their money. An Economist map comparing China and America reveals a global trade revolution: in 2000 only 12 countries traded more with China than America, in 2020 all countries of Asia, Africa, Oceania, and Eastern Europe traded more with China than America, with only one exception: Israel. And all countries of South America, except three, traded more with China than America. America keeps pressuring its friends and allies to choose sides and limit or cut trade, investment, and technology links with China. Some acquiesced partly but not completely. All are waiting. The leaders of France and Germany said publicly that they refused to be dragged into an economic break with China. Others, such as Japan, keep assuring their American ally of unstinting solidarity, but Japan’s massive trade and investment links with China are barely changing.

Remembering the Past, Wondering about the Future

Nobody knows which country will win the global economic race, except that the winner will probably be the one with the most revolutionary new ideas and the most successful new technologies. Currently China is closing itself up, but it knows that a complete de-coupling from the rest of the world is not possible. At least it wants to reduce its dependence on essential foreign products, and is encouraging foreign residents to leave, reducing or severing relations with elite foreign universities and increasing state controls and censorship. Apparently, it fears foreign ideas no less than foreign Covid mutations. President Xi Jinping has mentioned his respect for Mao Zedong. Closing China to foreign influence can be seen as Neo-Maoist. The United States, on the other hand, is polarized, with much of its people showing contempt for its leaders and pessimistic about the future. The Chinese, and many others, including Americans, see the country in terminal decline. Emperor Napoleon III of France and Hitler believed this and were wrong. America still has an enormous capacity for adaptation, self-correction and recuperation – if the country only wants it.

In the last two or three years, military and political strategists in both countries have been increasingly talking about possible hot wars between China and America. This should deeply worry public opinion and the political classes, but apparently it does not. Neither China nor the US want war, but the same was rightly said of the main European nations in 1914. And still, they plunged their countries into a four-year slaughter which destroyed Europe. Today’s historians no longer look for a single culprit behind the outbreak of World War I. They blame a shared state of mind in the European leadership: a lack of imagination, and a conviction that in certain situations there were no other available options. The future will tell us whether America and China’s leadership have more imagination and know that there are always options.

US vs China vs Israel: Fated to become Collateral Damage

This is the global context that Israel has to understand when defining its China policies. Disagreement over China is one of the oldest bones of contention between the US and Israel. In 2000 and 2004 the United States imposed an abrogation of Israeli weapon contracts with China, which provoked crisis between China and Israel. Ten years later, their relations began improving again, culminating in Israel’s fourth Innovation Summit hosted by Prime Minister Netanyahu and attended by Chinese Vice President Wang Qishan, the highest ranking Chinese official to visit Israel in many years (October 24-25, 2018). But several months before, President Trump had started his trade war against China. Israel took time to comprehend that its interest in strong China links would ultimately collide with its key ally’s decision to confront China. The US warned Israel that Chinese investments had strategic and intelligence value for China. These might endanger Israel’s security and even more, its friendship with the United States. Judging from a few public reactions, key Israeli security experts shared American concerns, but others did not. In general, Israel had a different view of the China issue. There is no old, negative historical baggage between the two countries as there is between China and the United States. Israeli public opinion was not hostile to China, on the contrary. China’s infrastructure investments were saving Israel billions of dollars, and mutual trade, second only to US trade, was growing faster than the latter.

Moreover, Israel could not ignore China’s increasing political, economic, and military links with Muslim Middle Eastern countries. China is estimated to be the biggest foreign investor in the wider Middle East today. Some see its entry into the region as a strategy to upend and replace the American and Western position there without using military force. If Israel was getting a big new neighbor, it had to look for ways to ensure that this neighbor would not be hostile. The United States was little inclined to listen to such considerations. Worse, China’s support for Iran, highlighted by the 25-year “strategic partnership” and cooperation agreement signed by the two countries in March 2021, showed no concern for Iran’s murderous threats against Israel. This did nothing to help Israel argue its case for increased relations with China. At least Russia, another good friend of Iran, has publicly condemned Iran’s extermination threats.

The US Keeps Warning

From the Innovation Summit in October 2018 on, the United States has not stopped warning Israel of the perceived China danger. A few weeks after Vice President Wang Qishan had left Israel, a large number of American experts, all non-governmental but well connected, fired a salvo of warnings at Israel. It was a simultaneous assault, a coordinated media campaign cautioning Israel that its China links were “misguided” and could jeopardize America’s friendship. During 2019 and 2020, senior members of the Trump administration, and in August 2021, President Biden’s CIA chief, visited Israel to reiterate, among others, America’s concern about China’s influence in general, or about specific projects. The American interlocutors made sure the media reported their concerns. Israel’s main English-language paper, the Jerusalem Post, often does so, generally espousing the US view. Israel was not deaf to American complaints. At the end of 2019 the government set up a new oversight panel to review foreign investment proposals for security implications. As the panel had no enforcement mechanisms, Israel promised to strengthen its powers. Israel is more cautious and does not accept all Chinese investment proposals.

China Keeps Watching

During 2019 and 2020, China followed the arguments between the United States and Israel with some apprehension. If this little country had really no importance for China, as many keep saying, there would have been few, if any, Chinese reactions. But China’s Embassy in Israel protested publicly more than once, attacking the United States for “abusing ‘national security’ to smear and strike down normal business activities.” The Chinese media, often signaling what Chinese leaders are thinking, showed apprehension about American pressure on Israel. One Chinese daily expressed hope that Israel would “avoid efforts to drag it into the US-China trade war.” China was concerned about American attacks against its global economic and technological expansion. Arguably, it hoped to use Israel as a model for others, demonstrating that even one of America’s closest allies could have flourishing trade and investment links with China. If that was China’s intention, America has derailed it.

During the two years in which Israel was politically paralyzed, no fundamental changes occurred. Israel maneuvered to strengthen its indispensable security alliance with the United States, and at the same time tried to protect its valuable economic relations with China. In 2020, Israel noted China’s cool reaction to the Abraham Accords. President Xi Jinping’s had more than once declared that the Palestinian question was the core issue of the Middle East. This was in fact Mao’s position and is an element of Xi’s “Neo-Maoism.” The Abraham Accords were seen as challenging Xi’s belief and, thus, could not garner China’s applause. In addition, China probably suspected an American plot to replace Chinese investment money and influence in Israel with Gulf money and influence. Whatever the reasons, China’s lack of enthusiasm did not mean hostility to Israel.

China had Enough and Turns more Hostile – For Now.

This changed in spring 2021 when China’s attitude toward Israel deteriorated, for the first time in more than 15 years. It became visible at three levels: Chinese leadership contacts with Middle Eastern leaders, China’s position in the United Nations, and in Chinese social media. Chinese leaders, often the foreign minister, meet with Middle Eastern leaders once a year if not more often, directly or via Zoom. The Chinese are courting not only the big countries, but also the small Gulf states that host American military bases. Israel is the only country in the Middle East with which China did not have any known high-level contacts in 2020/2021. Obviously, this sends a message to the Middle East. Second, there was a change of Chinese policy in the United Nations. China has always – vocally – supported the Palestinians in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. It sought permanent Arab and Muslim support in the UN but did not go beyond voting for all pro-Palestinian resolutions. In May 2021, China abandoned its long-standing policy of non-activism in the Arab-Israeli conflict. During the UN Security Council discussions of the Gaza conflict, China convened special meetings, formulated declarations condemning Israel, and asked for investigations of Israeli “war-crimes” without mentioning Hamas rockets. It used the conflict not primarily as a means to please the Arabs but to hit back at the United States and its defense of Israel. The United States keeps infuriating the Chinese by condemning the forced labor and education camps in the province of Xinjiang where one million Muslim Uyghurs are allegedly kept.

But Israel was not ready to let China’s hostile activism at the UN pass without reply. A few weeks later, at the end of June, Israel voted with 40 other Western countries in the UN Human Rights Council to condemn Chinese “abuses” in Xinjiang and elsewhere. Israel was under contradictory pressures, by both China and the United States. The Chinese were angry and blamed Israel for abandoning its former neutrality. They warned that its vote would have consequences. While these “events” – proverbial “tempests in UN teapots” – unfolded, a wave of genuine antisemitic, not only anti-Israeli, comments appeared in China’s social media. Wrote one: “Why does America always support Israel? Because the Jews control the American government and own all the money.” Chinese historians of Judaism were sure that antisemitism was unknown in China. Now they are worried: on the internet they can read China’s young people – even if some observers have also seen an Arab hand in Chinese internet antisemitism. It must be understood, however, that using the term “antisemitism” for China does not carry the same horrible historical baggage it does in the West or Arab world, a baggage of discrimination, persecution, expulsion, and murder. However, one particular incident shows the power of words in an emotional context. In June 2021 the Jerusalem Post published, for the second time, an unsigned editorial bluntly titled: “China has proven to be a bad actor. We owe them nothing.” This editorial had already been published a year earlier (19.8.2020). Among others, the author belittles the well-known story of Shanghai saving 20,000 Jews during the Holocaust, a source of pride for China. When the article appeared in Chinese, it triggered a spike of antisemitic replies on the internet.

Did you say “Genocide”?

China’s American adversaries, including officials, continually call the forced labor and education camps in Xinjiang a “genocide.” Human rights violations are reported from there, though not all have been verified by impartial sources. China retorted that “genocide” was the premeditated mass-murder of most European Jews or the mass-murder of the Tutsi people in Rwanda and other cases, but in Xinjiang there is no genocide. Even separately from the China case, Israel and the Jewish people may come to regret the widespread misuse of the term “genocide.” This has emptied the word of its true meaning, so that it is now used even against Israel. The term “genocide” was coined by a Jewish survivor from Poland where 90% of the Jewish population, and the survivor’s entire family, were exterminated. American Jewish organizations, such as the Jewish Council for Public Affairs (JCPA) and others, have recently thrown the genocide slur at China, in pursuit of some “progressive” agenda. They are desecrating the memory of the Shoah, offending Jewish survivors, harming Israel and, by the way, are not helping the Uyghurs. The Chinese have probably abandoned their hopes of many years that American Jews would have some understanding for their country and help reduce tensions between the two great powers. Now it is the new progressive members of the US Congress, all Israel critics and in some cases borderline antisemites, who have taken on this role. They are led by Democratic Rep. Ilhan Omar. In May 2021, the progressives sent warnings to President Biden and Congress against “fueling anti-Chinese hatred” by depicting China as an “existential threat.” An ironic inversion of roles which cannot have been lost on China’s diplomacy, and one more reason for China to distance itself from Israel.

“Wolves” and “Pandas”

Taken together, the absence of high-level meetings, intensified hostility to Israel in the UN, and social media antisemitism, is no coincidence. However, many relations between Israel and China continue as usual. Bilateral trade has so far not been disturbed by Chinese restrictions, but then, too little time has passed since spring 2021 for a political intervention to become visible. Chinese imports keep rising as in the US, while exports are stagnant or declining slightly which can have many non-political reasons. Next year we will know more about trade, and whether the large Chinese infrastructure companies continue competing for Israeli tenders. Chinese students continue to study in Israeli universities. The links between Chinese and Israeli universities and think tanks do not seem to be affected. China’s interest in, and respect for, Israel’s professional competence on the Middle East remains huge. Chinese and Israeli Middle East expert groups continue to meet via Zoom. Teaching of Jewish history, culture, and religion continues in Chinese universities, and so does work in the Israel Centers the Israeli NGO SIGNAL has set up in 14 Chinese universities. The Chinese want to know a lot about Israel and Israel helps them by its own means. Did Israel ever ask for a benefit?

One cannot exclude that China pursues two different tracks and speaks in two languages. Reports from China, including in Chinese media, mention two factions in China’s policy making apparatus, a “wolf” faction and a “panda” faction. The wolves argue for attacks against the West, the pandas advise a softer, more cautious approach. President Xi himself recently suggested a more conciliatory policy towards the West. Chinese citizens who immigrated to the West report that China’s middle classes feel uneasy about the current confrontation. It is in these growing middle classes – the reading public and the intellectuals – that Israel enjoyed a large amount of good will, or soft power. This soft power did not dissipate overnight because a Chinese UN diplomat excoriated Israel – and the United States – over the recent Gaza conflict.

Yin and Yang: Change is Permanent

If China’s views of Israel are changing, this would not be the first “cold” period in their bilateral relations. Change could happen again but not before the 20th National Congress of the Communist Party of China in December 2022. There, President Xi wants to be reelected.

– In the meantime, if Israel has fallen into the cracks between wolves and pandas, it should think of ways to maintain its soft power among China’s middle classes and work against hostile voices in social media.
– A sure way to enhance Israel’s global importance in Chinese eyes is to enlarge and improve Israel’s relations with the entire Muslim world and with Asia. The current Israeli priority to improve relations with Europe and US Democrats, important in itself, will have little effect in Beijing.
– The importance of greatly increasing links with Asia is not sufficiently understood. One of China’s top foreign policy priorities, apart from the struggle with the United States, is strengthening its impact on all surrounding Asian countries, most of which have been influenced for centuries by Chinese history and civilization. Israel’s presence in these countries will be noticed.
– China regards Israel today as little more than an American vassal state. If Israel is happy with this classification, so be it. If not, Israel must find ways to prove to the Chinese that it is not so, without jeopardizing its strategic relations with the United States.
– Israel must explain to its friends in the Jewish world, and to Israeli journalists, that accusing China of genocide is inappropriate, causes deep resentment, and triggers anti-Jewish sentiment. China’s public is probably better informed about the Shoah than any other public in Asia.
– Israel is underprepared to understand and deal with China, which gives China a major advantage in its relations with Israel and the Middle East. The number of China experts and Chinese speakers in Israel’s governmental sector, in industry, academia, and the media is too small compared to what Israel needs today.

The post China, the American Challenge and the Implications for Israel and the Jewish People first appeared on The Jewish People Policy Institute.

What are the consequences of the Sino-American conflict for Israel and the Jewish people?

How do China’s reactions to the American challenge affect relations with Israel? This question is part of a broader global picture that must first be reviewed.

The change of the US administration in 2021 did not mitigate the conflict between the two powers, contrary to what the Chinese had hoped when the US invited two of their most senior policy makers to a first high-level meeting on American soil, in Alaska (March 18-19, 2021). There, the public encounter between the two sides began with an exchange of bitter rebukes, rare in the history of diplomacy. The Chinese were visibly taken aback. For China, this was perhaps a watershed event; one that seems to have confirmed their conviction that Western and particularly American hostility was deeply entrenched. On the American side, President Biden knew that opposition to China – to curb its violations of the “global order” in American parlance and its tension with neighbors – was one of two major policy issues on which Democrats and Republicans agreed, apart from a shared wish to focus on domestic issues and leave the Middle East. Biden had every reason not to open his flank to Republican or general public scorn by appearing to be “soft” on China.

At home, both countries kept struggling with the health, economic, social and public opinion fall-out of the ongoing Covid pandemic. Both threw their best assets into the health battle: China its enormous capacity of mass mobilization and control, the United States its great science and technology potential, as well as its freedom of thought, communication, and speech, the latter affecting the fight against the pandemic both positively and negatively. The earlier scientific consensus in the West that the coronavirus jumped from wild animals and not from a Chinese lab is now in doubt. Scientists do not have all the answers they hoped to get from China.

In both countries, the economy is growing again. The economic relations between the two are complex and in America less controllable by government dictate. America’s large companies have decided to remain in the Chinese market. Currently, the trade and payment relations between the two are not to America’s advantage. Their balance is tilting again in China’s favor, as it did when Trump decided to intervene. American consumer demand for Chinese products is apparently unstoppable, even by tariffs, whereas China is greatly reducing its purchases of US agricultural products. In general, Chinese investments in America have declined and, as a consequence of the pandemic, Chinese tourists are no longer streaming to America to spend their money. An Economist map comparing China and America reveals a global trade revolution: in 2000 only 12 countries traded more with China than America, in 2020 all countries of Asia, Africa, Oceania, and Eastern Europe traded more with China than America, with only one exception: Israel. And all countries of South America, except three, traded more with China than America. America keeps pressuring its friends and allies to choose sides and limit or cut trade, investment, and technology links with China. Some acquiesced partly but not completely. All are waiting. The leaders of France and Germany said publicly that they refused to be dragged into an economic break with China. Others, such as Japan, keep assuring their American ally of unstinting solidarity, but Japan’s massive trade and investment links with China are barely changing.

Remembering the Past, Wondering about the Future

Nobody knows which country will win the global economic race, except that the winner will probably be the one with the most revolutionary new ideas and the most successful new technologies. Currently China is closing itself up, but it knows that a complete de-coupling from the rest of the world is not possible. At least it wants to reduce its dependence on essential foreign products, and is encouraging foreign residents to leave, reducing or severing relations with elite foreign universities and increasing state controls and censorship. Apparently, it fears foreign ideas no less than foreign Covid mutations. President Xi Jinping has mentioned his respect for Mao Zedong. Closing China to foreign influence can be seen as Neo-Maoist. The United States, on the other hand, is polarized, with much of its people showing contempt for its leaders and pessimistic about the future. The Chinese, and many others, including Americans, see the country in terminal decline. Emperor Napoleon III of France and Hitler believed this and were wrong. America still has an enormous capacity for adaptation, self-correction and recuperation – if the country only wants it.

In the last two or three years, military and political strategists in both countries have been increasingly talking about possible hot wars between China and America. This should deeply worry public opinion and the political classes, but apparently it does not. Neither China nor the US want war, but the same was rightly said of the main European nations in 1914. And still, they plunged their countries into a four-year slaughter which destroyed Europe. Today’s historians no longer look for a single culprit behind the outbreak of World War I. They blame a shared state of mind in the European leadership: a lack of imagination, and a conviction that in certain situations there were no other available options. The future will tell us whether America and China’s leadership have more imagination and know that there are always options.

US vs China vs Israel: Fated to become Collateral Damage

This is the global context that Israel has to understand when defining its China policies. Disagreement over China is one of the oldest bones of contention between the US and Israel. In 2000 and 2004 the United States imposed an abrogation of Israeli weapon contracts with China, which provoked crisis between China and Israel. Ten years later, their relations began improving again, culminating in Israel’s fourth Innovation Summit hosted by Prime Minister Netanyahu and attended by Chinese Vice President Wang Qishan, the highest ranking Chinese official to visit Israel in many years (October 24-25, 2018). But several months before, President Trump had started his trade war against China. Israel took time to comprehend that its interest in strong China links would ultimately collide with its key ally’s decision to confront China. The US warned Israel that Chinese investments had strategic and intelligence value for China. These might endanger Israel’s security and even more, its friendship with the United States. Judging from a few public reactions, key Israeli security experts shared American concerns, but others did not. In general, Israel had a different view of the China issue. There is no old, negative historical baggage between the two countries as there is between China and the United States. Israeli public opinion was not hostile to China, on the contrary. China’s infrastructure investments were saving Israel billions of dollars, and mutual trade, second only to US trade, was growing faster than the latter. Moreover, Israel could not ignore China’s increasing political, economic, and military links with Muslim Middle Eastern countries. China is estimated to be the biggest foreign investor in the wider Middle East today. Some see its entry into the region as a strategy to upend and replace the American and Western position there without using military force. If Israel was getting a big new neighbor, it had to look for ways to ensure that this neighbor would not be hostile. The United States was little inclined to listen to such considerations. Worse, China’s support for Iran, highlighted by the 25-year “strategic partnership” and cooperation agreement signed by the two countries in March 2021, showed no concern for Iran’s murderous threats against Israel. This did nothing to help Israel argue its case for increased relations with China. At least Russia, another good friend of Iran, has publicly condemned Iran’s extermination threats.

The US Keeps Warning

From the Innovation Summit in October 2018 on, the United States has not stopped warning Israel of the perceived China danger. A few weeks after Vice President Wang Qishan had left Israel, a large number of American experts, all non-governmental but well connected, fired a salvo of warnings at Israel. It was a simultaneous assault, a coordinated media campaign cautioning Israel that its China links were “misguided” and could jeopardize America’s friendship. During 2019 and 2020, senior members of the Trump administration, and in August 2021, President Biden’s CIA chief, visited Israel to reiterate, among others, America’s concern about China’s influence in general, or about specific projects. The American interlocutors made sure the media reported their concerns. Israel’s main English-language paper, the Jerusalem Post, often does so, generally espousing the US view. Israel was not deaf to American complaints. At the end of 2019 the government set up a new oversight panel to review foreign investment proposals for security implications. As the panel had no enforcement mechanisms, Israel promised to strengthen its powers. Israel is more cautious and does not accept all Chinese investment proposals.

China Keeps Watching

During 2019 and 2020, China followed the arguments between the United States and Israel with some apprehension. If this little country had really no importance for China, as many keep saying, there would have been few, if any, Chinese reactions. But China’s Embassy in Israel protested publicly more than once, attacking the United States for “abusing ‘national security’ to smear and strike down normal business activities.” The Chinese media, often signaling what Chinese leaders are thinking, showed apprehension about American pressure on Israel. One Chinese daily expressed hope that Israel would “avoid efforts to drag it into the US-China trade war.” China was concerned about American attacks against its global economic and technological expansion. Arguably, it hoped to use Israel as a model for others, demonstrating that even one of America’s closest allies could have flourishing trade and investment links with China. If that was China’s intention, America has derailed it.

During the two years in which Israel was politically paralyzed, no fundamental changes occurred. Israel maneuvered to strengthen its indispensable security alliance with the United States, and at the same time tried to protect its valuable economic relations with China. In 2020, Israel noted China’s cool reaction to the Abraham Accords. President Xi Jinping’s had more than once declared that the Palestinian question was the core issue of the Middle East. This was in fact Mao’s position and is an element of Xi’s “Neo-Maoism.” The Abraham Accords were seen as challenging Xi’s belief and, thus, could not garner China’s applause. In addition, China probably suspected an American plot to replace Chinese investment money and influence in Israel with Gulf money and influence. Whatever the reasons, China’s lack of enthusiasm did not mean hostility to Israel.

China had Enough and Turns more Hostile – For Now.

This changed in spring 2021 when China’s attitude toward Israel deteriorated, for the first time in more than 15 years. It became visible at three levels: Chinese leadership contacts with Middle Eastern leaders, China’s position in the United Nations, and in Chinese social media. Chinese leaders, often the foreign minister, meet with Middle Eastern leaders once a year if not more often, directly or via Zoom. The Chinese are courting not only the big countries, but also the small Gulf states that host American military bases. Israel is the only country in the Middle East with which China did not have any known high-level contacts in 2020/2021. Obviously, this sends a message to the Middle East. Second, there was a change of Chinese policy in the United Nations. China has always – vocally – supported the Palestinians in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. It sought permanent Arab and Muslim support in the UN but did not go beyond voting for all pro-Palestinian resolutions. In May 2021, China abandoned its long-standing policy of non-activism in the Arab-Israeli conflict. During the UN Security Council discussions of the Gaza conflict, China convened special meetings, formulated declarations condemning Israel, and asked for investigations of Israeli “war-crimes” without mentioning Hamas rockets. It used the conflict not primarily as a means to please the Arabs but to hit back at the United States and its defense of Israel. The United States keeps infuriating the Chinese by condemning the forced labor and education camps in the province of Xinjiang where one million Muslim Uyghurs are allegedly kept.

But Israel was not ready to let China’s hostile activism at the UN pass without reply. A few weeks later, at the end of June, Israel voted with 40 other Western countries in the UN Human Rights Council to condemn Chinese “abuses” in Xinjiang and elsewhere. Israel was under contradictory pressures, by both China and the United States. The Chinese were angry and blamed Israel for abandoning its former neutrality. They warned that its vote would have consequences. While these “events” – proverbial “tempests in UN teapots” – unfolded, a wave of genuine antisemitic, not only anti-Israeli, comments appeared in China’s social media. Wrote one: “Why does America always support Israel? Because the Jews control the American government and own all the money.” Chinese historians of Judaism were sure that antisemitism was unknown in China. Now they are worried: on the internet they can read China’s young people – even if some observers have also seen an Arab hand in Chinese internet antisemitism. It must be understood, however, that using the term “antisemitism” for China does not carry the same horrible historical baggage it does in the West or Arab world, a baggage of discrimination, persecution, expulsion, and murder. However, one particular incident shows the power of words in an emotional context. In June 2021 the Jerusalem Post published, for the second time, an unsigned editorial bluntly titled: “China has proven to be a bad actor. We owe them nothing.” This editorial had already been published a year earlier (19.8.2020). Among others, the author belittles the well-known story of Shanghai saving 20,000 Jews during the Holocaust, a source of pride for China. When the article appeared in Chinese, it triggered a spike of antisemitic replies on the internet.

Did you say “Genocide”?

China’s American adversaries, including officials, continually call the forced labor and education camps in Xinjiang a “genocide.” Human rights violations are reported from there, though not all have been verified by impartial sources. China retorted that “genocide” was the premeditated mass-murder of most European Jews or the mass-murder of the Tutsi people in Rwanda and other cases, but in Xinjiang there is no genocide. Even separately from the China case, Israel and the Jewish people may come to regret the widespread misuse of the term “genocide.” This has emptied the word of its true meaning, so that it is now used even against Israel. The term “genocide” was coined by a Jewish survivor from Poland where 90% of the Jewish population, and the survivor’s entire family, were exterminated. American Jewish organizations, such as the Jewish Council for Public Affairs (JCPA) and others, have recently thrown the genocide slur at China, in pursuit of some “progressive” agenda. They are desecrating the memory of the Shoah, offending Jewish survivors, harming Israel and, by the way, are not helping the Uyghurs. The Chinese have probably abandoned their hopes of many years that American Jews would have some understanding for their country and help reduce tensions between the two great powers. Now it is the new progressive members of the US Congress, all Israel critics and in some cases borderline antisemites, who have taken on this role. They are led by Democratic Rep. Ilhan Omar. In May 2021, the progressives sent warnings to President Biden and Congress against “fueling anti-Chinese hatred” by depicting China as an “existential threat.” An ironic inversion of roles which cannot have been lost on China’s diplomacy, and one more reason for China to distance itself from Israel.

“Wolves” and “Pandas”

Taken together, the absence of high-level meetings, intensified hostility to Israel in the UN, and social media antisemitism, is no coincidence. However, many relations between Israel and China continue as usual. Bilateral trade has so far not been disturbed by Chinese restrictions, but then, too little time has passed since spring 2021 for a political intervention to become visible. Chinese imports keep rising as in the US, while exports are stagnant or declining slightly which can have many non-political reasons. Next year we will know more about trade, and whether the large Chinese infrastructure companies continue competing for Israeli tenders. Chinese students continue to study in Israeli universities. The links between Chinese and Israeli universities and think tanks do not seem to be affected. China’s interest in, and respect for, Israel’s professional competence on the Middle East remains huge. Chinese and Israeli Middle East expert groups continue to meet via Zoom. Teaching of Jewish history, culture, and religion continues in Chinese universities, and so does work in the Israel Centers the Israeli NGO SIGNAL has set up in 14 Chinese universities. The Chinese want to know a lot about Israel and Israel helps them by its own means. Did Israel ever ask for a benefit?

One cannot exclude that China pursues two different tracks and speaks in two languages. Reports from China, including in Chinese media, mention two factions in China’s policy making apparatus, a “wolf” faction and a “panda” faction. The wolves argue for attacks against the West, the pandas advise a softer, more cautious approach. President Xi himself recently suggested a more conciliatory policy towards the West. Chinese citizens who immigrated to the West report that China’s middle classes feel uneasy about the current confrontation. It is in these growing middle classes – the reading public and the intellectuals – that Israel enjoyed a large amount of good will, or soft power. This soft power did not dissipate overnight because a Chinese UN diplomat excoriated Israel – and the United States – over the recent Gaza conflict.

Yin and Yang: Change is Permanent

If China’s views of Israel are changing, this would not be the first “cold” period in their bilateral relations. Change could happen again but not before the 20^th National Congress of the Communist Party of China in December 2022. There, President Xi wants to be reelected.

• In the meantime, if Israel has fallen into the cracks between wolves and pandas, it should think of ways to maintain its soft power among China’s middle classes and work against hostile voices in social media.
• A sure way to enhance Israel’s global importance in Chinese eyes is to enlarge and improve Israel’s relations with the entire Muslim world and with Asia. The current Israeli priority to improve relations with Europe and US Democrats, important in itself, will have little effect in Beijing.
• The importance of greatly increasing links with Asia is not sufficiently understood. One of China’s top foreign policy priorities, apart from the struggle with the United States, is strengthening its impact on all surrounding Asian countries, most of which have been influenced for centuries by Chinese history and civilization. Israel’s presence in these countries will be noticed.
• China regards Israel today as little more than an American vassal state. If Israel is happy with this classification, so be it. If not, Israel must find ways to prove to the Chinese that it is not so, without jeopardizing its strategic relations with the United States.
• Israel must explain to its friends in the Jewish world, and to Israeli journalists, that accusing China of genocide is inappropriate, causes deep resentment, and triggers anti-Jewish sentiment. China’s public is probably better informed about the Shoah than any other public in Asia.
• Israel is underprepared to understand and deal with China, which gives China a major advantage in its relations with Israel and the Middle East. The number of China experts and Chinese speakers in Israel’s governmental sector, in industry, academia, and the media is too small compared to what Israel needs today.

The post China, the American Challenge and the Implications for Israel and the Jewish People first appeared on The Jewish People Policy Institute.

Published in the Jerusalem Post.

Since 2018, when the United States began to confront China and pressure Israel to greatly reduce its links with Beijing, a growing number of experts and non-experts from both Israel and the US have offered their advice on how Israel should address this challenge. By now there have been many dozens newspaper articles, op-eds, interviews, conferences and Zoom meetings on Israel’s options.

These expert/non-expert opinions fall into two categories. One looks first at Israel’s profound strategic links with the US and the indispensable assistance that Israel continues to receive from its senior partner. These experts see Israel’s American alliance overriding every other geostrategic concern. Therefore, they argue, Israel’s national interest regarding China is identical to that of the US, and if it is not yet, it must now be aligned to America’s national interest.

A 2019 Rand Corporation Study reviewed Israel-China relations from the perspective of the American national interest. The study coats America’s demands in suave diplomatic language: “The US might be willing and able to help Israel to manage its growing relations with China. In blunt language, Israel will have to let the US define precisely which relations it is allowed to have with China and which it will not.

The dominant opinion of the second category is, “Israel has a vital interest in expanding its flexibility and independence in its relations with the two powers,” to quote from the Jewish People Policy Institute’s (JPPI) 2020 Annual Assessment of the Situation and Dynamics of the Jewish People. Israel will have to maneuver a narrow path between safeguarding its irreplaceable strategic links with the US and maintaining as many economic links with China as possible. Israel cannot ignore that China is emerging faster than almost every other country from the current pandemic and economic crisis, and that it is entering the Middle East – not only Iran – in big steps, economically and probably militarily, and that it will soon be Israel’s neighbor.

A few days ago, The Jerusalem Post published an article by Yaacov Ayish, a former defense attaché to the United States. He supports the first of the two positions mentioned above. His title is his program: “Israel must partner with the US in the great power competition with China.” More than that, he writes, “Israel must decisively support Washington’s effort to face down Beijing. This would serve not only Washington’s interests, but Israel’s as well.”

Israel has been compared to a small monkey who got entangled in a fight between two gorillas. Monkeys are fast and smart; they can outdo a gorilla but not in direct confrontation. Israel “facing down Beijing?” And this at a moment when most other countries are hesitant to join the US? How would “Israel’s interest be served” when Israel-China links are so miniscule for China that their disappearance would be statistically invisible, whereas it would be very visible in Israeli economic statistics.

Israel would be badly hurt. Israelis must get real and look through the current propaganda fog. America has an uncanny ability to change course and adapt to new realities. The US Chamber of Commerce in Shanghai just wrote its most recent survey that 97% of American enterprises active in China are refusing to leave.

It is not wise for Israel to openly join the fight between the two giants now. Israel has to do what it needs to do to protect its interests on both sides, keep a low profile, avoid dramatic decisions and wait as long as it takes. Half a year, one year, two years? Everything flows. Everything changes. Nothing remains the same. Ancient Chinese and Greek philosophers were teaching this very wisdom at the same time in the fifth century BCE.

The post Must Israel ‘support Washington to face down Beijing?’ – analysis first appeared on The Jewish People Policy Institute.

Gen. (Ret.) Michael Herzog and Dr. Shalom Salomon Wald, moderated by JPPI Fellow Dan Feferman. This is a follow up to JPPI’s recent publication “China’s Rise, US Opposition and the Implications for Israel” by Dr. Shalom Salomon Wald, with an introduction by JPPI’s Co-Chair Amb. Dennis Ross.

The post The Global Positions of China and the US, Before and After the Coronavirus Crisis first appeared on The Jewish People Policy Institute.