China vies for Middle East Influence through Palestinian Support
President Xi Jinping and Palestinian leader Mahmud Abbas at a signing ceremony at the Great Hall of the People in Beijing. Photo: AFP
In 1965, China became the first non-Arab nation to forge ties with the Palestinians. A couple decades later in 1988, China officially recognized Palestinian statehood. China’s complex relationship with Palestine was built during the rule of Mao Zedong when the nation’s foreign policy agenda was fiercely anti-imperialist and guided by the concept of supporting and aiding other fellow third-world nations against the American and Soviet cold war spheres of influence.
At the time, Mao compared “Israel to Taiwan, saying the two were created by imperialism to keep the Arabs and Chinese in check.” Chinese statesman Zhou Enlai went even further, characterizing Israel as being “created by American imperialists.” As time has passed and Chinese power has continued to grow, the Chinese-Palestinian relationship has held firm. The “Third-World” is now the “Global South,” and China has increasingly looked to represent the bloc on the world stage.
Modern Chinese-Palestinian relations no longer represent just solidarity with the developing world, but also impact power and influence within the wider Middle East. The relationship has followed the previous words of Zhou Enlai and is primarily, like much of Chinese foreign policy, focused on the US. As Freedom House research director for China Yaqiu Wang illustrates, “the Chinese government has always propagated a narrative that places the blame squarely on Israel, a key US ally, because this aligns with a key objective of [China’s] propaganda: to undermine the US in the international community.”
Fervent US support for Israel has frustrated many Arab states, leaving China an opportunity to fill the power vacuum in the region and gain influence amidst an American foreign policy agenda which is increasingly disengaging from the region. China capitalized on Arab discontent with American policy towards Israel by expanding its arms sales and increasing trade with Arab nations in the region; Israel and Bahrain are now the only two nations in the middle east which trade more with the US than with China. China has also increased its pro-Palestinian rhetoric as Chinese foreign minister Wang Yi vocalized to his Saudi counterpart “[Israel’s] retaliation had gone beyond self-defence and it should stop its collective punishment of the people in Gaza.”
Trade with Middle Eastern countries in 2022 ($bn) Source: US International Trade Commission
China’s support of the Palestinians has in turn angered Israel, especially as China refuses to designate Hamas as a terrorist organization. However, Israeli protests may not lead to a change in policy in Beijing as all indications would lead to believe that China is more concerned about its favorability with the Arab states in the region. According to the New York Times, China has become “addicted to foreign oil… depend[ing] on imports for 72 percent of its oil needs.”
No country (including the US) buys more oil from Saudi Arabia than China who also has tripled its oil imports from Iran in just the past two years. Half of all Chinese oil imports originate from the Persian Gulf, making China “highly exposed to the current instability in the Middle East.” China’s Middle Eastern strategy has fared surprisingly well as last March China mediated a rapprochement between long-time regional adversaries, Iran and Saudi Arabia.
Besides oil, another reason China may be increasing its support for Palestine is to increase its favorability amongst the Muslim world. China has faced harsh backlash from the international community over its treatment of Uyghur Muslims in the Xinjiang region and may be “looking to win the support of Arab countries on [the] contentious issue” per Tuvia Gering, a researcher at the Israel-China Policy Center in Tel Aviv.
China may also be seeking to align itself with the Muslim world as a way of building an anti-American and anti-Indian bloc, two states which China increasingly sees as adversarial and which have deeply hostile relations with Iran and Pakistan respectively (two nations heavily involved in China’s belt and road initiative). This strategy comes after the formation of the US and India’s Quad Alliance, which China characterized as an “Asian NATO” which is “intent on containing China’s rise.”
Whether it is ideology, oil, Uyghurs, or security, China is showing support for Palestine on the world stage. As the US continues to back the Israeli government and China the Palestinians, we may be looking at a further divided and multialligned Middle East.