China is playing a calculated strategic game in the Middle East, positioning itself as a peace-brokering alternative to the US while having no real skin in the game, experts say.
Sitting alongside the French president at the Élysée Palace, Xi Jinping was eager to convey his desire for international peace.
“The international community must act. We call on all parties to work for an immediate, comprehensive and sustainable ceasefire in Gaza,” he said, repeating Beijing’s support for a two-state solution to the Israel-Palestinian conflict. It is a view echoed by Jon Alterman, director of the Middle East Program at the Centre for Strategic and International Studies in Washington, who argues that China had been missing in action on the heavy lifting of conflict resolution negotiations in the region.
, whose bitter rivalry has played out in destabilising proxy wars throughout the region over the years. The deal, which restored diplomacy between the two countries, was widely touted as heralding China’s emergence as a serious international mediator. It also provided the region with a glimpse of a potential future where America was not the playmaker.
“China wants to challenge the United States and Israel’s narrative on Hamas, which sees wiping out Hamas as the only way for peace between Palestinians and Israel,” Aboudouh says. Alterman said China appeared to have made a shrewd political calculation that its relationship with Israel was necessary collateral damage in its pursuit of its broader goal to rally the Global South against the US.
Public appeals by the Biden administration for China to flex its influence with Iran to calm tensions in the region, Aboudouh says, should be viewed as a tactical play to expose the limits of Beijing’s influence.
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