7/14/2021 Can China’s Israel-Palestine Peace Plan Work?

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Can China’s
Israel-Palestine
Peace Plan Work?
China’s four-point proposal
for peace in the Middle East
is the same one Beijing has
raised, to little effect, for
nearly a decade.

By William Figueroa
May 25, 2021

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7/14/2021 Can China’s Israel-Palestine Peace Plan Work? – The Diplomat

An Iraqi child holding a Palestinian flag walks

near placards lying on the grass during a
protest against Israeli airstrikes on Gaza
outside the Palestine Embassy in Beijing
Friday, July 18, 2014.
Credit: AP Photo/Andy Wong

On May 17, Chinese State Councilor and Foreign

Minister Wang Yi put forth a four-point
proposal for peace in the Israel-Palestine
conflict. Wang called for “both parties to the
conflict to immediately stop military and hostile
actions” and said that “Israel must exercise
restraint in particular.” He stressed the need for
humanitarian aid, the lifting of the blockade of
Gaza, and international support for a “two-state
solution” that included “a fully sovereign and
independent Palestinian state… with East
Jerusalem as the capital, to achieve the
harmonious coexistence of the Arab and Jewish
nations and lasting peace in the Middle East.”

Over the last few days, China has also criticized

the U.S. response to the violence as a “political
farce” after Washington blocked a United
Nations Security Council resolution calling for a
ceasefire and approved a $735 million dollar
arms sale to Israel amid Israel’s ongoing assault
on civilian centers in Gaza. Beijing has also

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offered to host a summit that would bring the

two sides into direct negotiations.

How seriously should these pronouncements be

taken, and how likely are they to lead to a
breakthrough in negotiations?

Wang’s comments resurrected the four-point

proposal made by Xi Jinping in 2017, which
itself was a repackaging of the four-point plan
for peace offered by Xi to Palestinian leader
Mahmoud Abbas in 2013. While the specific
language of these three plans has varied, the
content has largely remained the same and has
been consistent with China’s stance toward the
Israel-Palestine conflict since the early 1990s.
Notably, the “plans” are often vague (although
perhaps no more so than the usual U.N.
resolutions on the subject) and offer nothing
substantially new on the topic. In general, all
three versions endorse the international
consensus that calls for a two-state solution
based on the 1967 borders, condemn human
rights violations and aggression on both sides,
and call for mediated negotiations. Mohammad
al-Sudairi has argued that these calls are all
“within the framework of the global consensus
and the principles accepted and voiced by the
‘moderate’ Arab camp” and embody what he
calls China’s “essentially conservative
disposition” toward the conflict.

These earlier attempts all failed to strike a chord

with the parties involved. Although Abbas is
fond of public trips to China, which he made in
2013 and 2017, Palestinians are unlikely to see
the Chinese as a neutral partner due to their
close relationship with Israel. According to 2018
data from the World Bank, Israel imported more
goods from China than anywhere else, while
China is the second-largest importer of Israeli
products. Bilateral trade stands at around $15
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billion and includes cooperation in

infrastructure and high technology. While this is
just a drop in the bucket of China’s total trade
value, Israel has historically been an important
source of military technology that the United
States is unwilling to share. According to a
report from the U.S.-China Economic and
Security Review Commission, as of 2010 “Israel
rank[ed] second only to Russia as a weapons
system provider to China and as a conduit for
sophisticated military technology, followed by
France and Germany.”

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This relationship has often drawn the ire of the

United States, which occasionally pressures
Israel to pull out of various deals with China.
Most recently, U.S. pressure prevented Israel
from selling advanced Phalcon Airborne
Warning and Control System (AWACS) aircraft
to China. However, despite these occasional
bumps, the tendency has been to share rather
than withhold technology.

Israel has also been seen as the “research and

development (R&D) lab” of China in recent
decades in a way that other Middle Eastern
countries have not been. China and Israel have
hosted many reciprocal business events that
facilitate cooperation between Chinese and
Israeli firms, usually with Israel providing
technology to an established Chinese company.
There are also significant R&D ties between
businesses in the two nations, which culminated
in a general “R&D Cooperation Agreement”
between the two nations in 2010, as well as a
separate R&D Cooperation Agreement with the
municipal government of Shanghai, which
provides funding for research and development

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for any joint projects of Israeli and Chinese

companies.

Starting in 2016, Chinese investors became

especially interested in online businesses based
in Israel’s “Silicon Wadi,” which offers less
regulation than its U.S. counterpart. These
companies bring advanced technology and
experience to these projects, including new R&D
to meet needs in China, which local firms then
borrow and integrate. While U.S. pressure again
sometimes prevents important connections
from materializing – most recently by blocking
Israel’s use of Chinese telecommunications
company Huawei’s 5G technology – the
relationship has been steadily trending
upwards.

While China has a similar relationship with

several Arab states that (at least rhetorically)
champion the Palestinian cause, China’s
relations with the Palestine Liberation
Organization (PLO) and other Palestinian
organizations are much weaker. China has also
been slow to embrace some of the most
important positions held by the Arab states and
the PLO. For example, in 2010, at the Fourth
Ministerial China-Arab States Cooperation
Forum in Tianjin, China refused to sign a
resolution affirming East Jerusalem as the
capital of a future Palestinian state, likely under
pressure from Israeli lobbyists.

At the same time, despite robust ties with

Beijing, Israel has no interest in having China
act as a mediator, either. When Xi Jinping
offered to mediate a meeting between Abbas
and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu
in 2013 during an official state visit, Netanyahu
unsurprisingly sidestepped the offer in favor of
discussing economic issues and China’s
relationship with Iran. With the United States
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providing diplomatic support and vetoing any

attempts at even moderate diplomatic pressure,
there is little reason for the Israelis to change
their stance now.

In short, Wang’s latest four-point plan is simply

a rehash of the international consensus, with no
real chance of bringing either the Israelis or the
Palestinians to the negotiating table. China’s
interests in maintaining positive relations with
Israel preclude it from offering anything that
will truly threaten the status quo or pressuring
Israel to accept mediation. Any progress would
be contingent on Israel agreeing to allow China
to step into the negotiations, a development that
Netanyahu has every incentive to avoid. While
China’s rhetorical support for the Palestinians is
an important part of its strategy of engagement
with the Arab world, it only needs to embrace
the international consensus to win the support
of the Arab states, which are themselves content
to make only just enough noise about Palestine
to satisfy their own populations.

Chinese support for the Palestinians should thus

be understood primarily as a tool of foreign
policy. For this reason, one should not expect
China to be any more dedicated to the
Palestinian cause than the rest of the
international community and should have no
illusions regarding the Chinese stance toward
the Palestinians and Israel. Good relations with
the Israelis can offer substantial trade markets
and access to commercial and military
technology, and maintaining a balance between
Israel and the Arab states enhances China’s
image as a rising superpower that can be
trusted by all sides. The Palestinians can offer
none of these things. China pays no real price
for offering rhetorical support, so it can
effectively have its cake and eat it too.

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Like all states, China plays a game without rules

and is fundamentally self-interested and
pragmatic. Though China is likely to become an
increasingly important player in the Middle East
over the next few decades, it is not likely that it
will take a substantially different approach to
the peace process than any established power.

AUTHORS

GUEST AUTHOR

William Figueroa
Dr. William Figueroa is a recent graduate of the
History Ph.D. program at the University of
Pennsylvania, where he specialized in historical
and contemporary Sino-Iranian relations.

TAGS

Features Diplomacy China China in the Middle East

China Middle East policy Gaza crisis Israel-Palestine conflict

Middle East Peace Process

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