Roving Periscope: After the Saudi-Iran deal, China tries to untie the Israel-Palestine knots
Virendra Pandit
New Delhi: The fluttering Dragon is trying to land on the volatile runway in the Middle East, and elbow out the West from what may emerge as the most important geopolitical strategy in the 21st century.
And this is when an atheist China is virtually stamping out both the monotheist faiths—Christianity and Islam—from its own territory. It has jackbooted millions of Uighur Muslims in what it claims is “Xinjiang” (originally, Eastern Turkestan), and changed its demography by ‘importing’ millions of Han Chinese as it did in Tibet earlier.
Also, in the last few years, Beijing has ‘Sinified’ the two faiths the Middle East gave the world, erased the conventional architecture of churches and mosques, and erected shopping malls. It has also resisted the Pope.
But the emerging geopolitical realities, and the Middle East’s efforts to shake off the West’s shackles, have forced the strict monotheist region to embrace a strictly atheist China.
While the US is trying to unsettle Chinese hegemony from the East, Beijing is barging into the Middle East to undo whatever Washington achieved there since the end of the Second World War.
In this far-reaching geostrategic move, President Xi Jinping’s close associate Qin Gang is playing the matchmaker. After serving as Vice Minister for Foreign Affairs (2018-21) and then as the Chinese Ambassador to the US, Gang was appointed as China’s Foreign Minister in December 2022. He is China’s second-highest diplomat after Wang Yi, Director of the Chinese Communist Party Central Committee Foreign Affairs Commission Office.
Soon after assuming his top diplomatic office, Gang started rolling the wheel in the Middle East.
After successfully brokering a deal between the global Sunni leader Saudi Arabia and its Shia counterpart Iran in March 2023, much to the dismay of the West, he is now trying to position China as a regional mediator and peacemaker—by making efforts to bring the Israelis and Palestinians to the negotiating table.
According to a Tuesday report from Xinhua, China’s state-controlled media outlet, Foreign Minister Qin Gang has told his Israeli and Palestinian counterparts that Beijing is ready to help facilitate peace talks between them.
In a telephonic conversation on Monday with his Israeli counterpart Eli Cohen, Gang urged him to initiate “steps to resume peace talks,” and said that “China is ready to provide convenience for this.”
In a separate call, Gang also told Palestinian Foreign Minister Riyad Al-Maliki that Beijing supports the resumption of talks as soon as possible.
In both these calls, the Chinese Foreign Minister emphasized China’s push for peace talks on the basis of implementing a “two-state solution.” The Israel-Palestinian peace negotiations have remained stalled since 2014.
China’s latest forays into the Middle East are the result of the unfolding US strategy in Asia, particularly in the East.
In the last three years, the US has not only revived the Quadrilateral Security Dialogue (Quad) and roped in India, Japan, and Australia in this ‘Asian NATO’, but it has also created yet another security alliance, ANZUS, with Australia and New Zealand for securing the Pacific Ocean from China. These geopolitical strategies are viewed as containment and encirclement of China which has been trying to establish hegemony in the South China Sea, the Indian Ocean, the Pacific Ocean, and beyond.
Besides, the US is weaponizing Taiwan to keep China in check.
In return, China launched a diplomatic offensive in the Middle East where the US has been the main diplomatic powerbroker for decades.
Post-Covid, China has also ‘sided’ with Russia after its invasion of Ukraine in February 2022—without selling arms and ammunition to Moscow—while the West, led by the US, is funding and arming Ukraine against Russia. In other words, while the West has contained Russia in Ukraine, China is fluttering its wings elsewhere.
Interestingly, Beijing’s chicanery has not gone unnoticed: while it is pushing Taiwan to merge with “One China”, it is advocating a “two-state” theory for Israel and Palestine!
This is also the biggest stumbling block.
So, will the Dragon ever dare to land in Taiwan?
