After the armed group Hamas launched a surprise assault on Israel on October 7th, US President Joe Biden quickly condemned Hamas’s attack. His administration later ordered two carrier strike groups to the eastern Mediterranean and readied the deployment of 2,000 troops to deter any other actors from widening the war in the region. Biden, as well as some other countries’ leaders, visited Israel in a show of solidarity. China’s engagement, however, has looked quite different. Neither Xi nor his foreign minister, Wang Yi, have visited the region since the outbreak of fighting. They are following the basic Chinese playbook when conflict breaks out between Israelis and Palestinians, where “they take a very cautious stance initially and then call for peace and condemn violence against civilians while primarily focusing on Palestinian grievances.”
Beijing has traditionally prioritized relations with the Palestinians in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. However, China has also expanded its ties with Israel. China established full diplomatic relations with Israel in 1992 and has since invested billions in its economy – its investments in the Palestinian territories being negligible in comparison.
