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Opinion | China should cooperate with US to de-escalate Israel-Gaza war
- The stability that working with the US in the Middle East could provide would far outweigh any irritation among China’s strategic partners
- Collaboration could also open the door to progress on other sensitive issues, such as rising tensions in the South China Sea
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China should coordinate with the United States to de-escalate Israel’s war against Hamas, even at the risk of irritating strategic partners in Russia and Iran. For a commercial powerhouse such as China, the advantages of cooperation with Washington for stability in the Middle East far outweigh those of trying to capitalise on a scenario in which the US remains stuck in two wars.
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The idea that the current course of geopolitical events is a strategic windfall for China in its competition with the US has proved popular in several quarters. Some say the conflict between Israel and Hamas, as well as Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, will distract Washington from the Indo-Pacific, to China’s benefit.
Washington’s support for Israel, as opposed to Beijing’s “neutral” position on the conflict, would also gain the Chinese more influence in the Middle East – and the whole Global South – including a potential mediation role in the Israel-Palestine dispute.
That all seems dubious. China’s rise over the past four decades has also been built on the absence of major military confrontations. In contrast, the war in Ukraine and the chaos in the Middle East are having global reverberations at a time when the world economy is struggling to regain momentum.
China needs a stable geopolitical environment to consolidate its post-pandemic economic recovery. US troubles, from Eastern Europe to Gaza, cannot offset the commercial losses caused by ongoing wars. In China’s plans, Ukraine and the Middle East should be key transit points for its trade with Europe under the Belt and Road Initiative, but instead they are now battlegrounds.
Security instability is already negatively affecting some sections of the belt and road. For instance, take the US$62 billion China-Pakistan Economic Corridor, which is beset with security concerns because of the persistent threats of separatists and Islamist militants. The idea that China can play a brokering role between Israel and the Palestinians, provided this is its true intention, is also questionable.
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