China and Russia find common cause in Gaza crisis
REUTERS, Beijing/Washington
With anger building across the Middle East over Israel’s strikes in Gaza, China and Russia are finding common cause with countries across the region in support of the Palestinians.
For Moscow and Beijing, Israel’s bombardment of Gaza presents an opportunity to burnish their credentials as the champions of the developing world, in contrast with the United States, which has put its support squarely behind ally Israel.
China has consistently called for restraint and a ceasefire but has also sharpened its criticism of Israel.
“Israel’s actions have gone beyond the scope of self-defense,” Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi said this week, called on it to stop its “collective punishment” of Gaza residents, Chinese state media reported.
Russia has expressed sympathy for the Palestinians while blaming the US “I think that many people will agree with me that this is a vivid example of the failure of United States policy in the Middle East,” Russian President Vladimir Putin said this week.
Both Putin and Chinese President Xi Jinping have sought to deepen ties to the global south, seeing economic opportunities and possibly a way to counterbalance the diplomatic influence of the US and its allies.
That was on display this week as China hosted a summit for Xi’s signature Belt and Road Initiative, which has lent hundreds of billions of dollars for infrastructure projects across the Middle East, Africa, Latin America, and Asia.
Putin attended and met Xi for three hours of talks that included “an in-depth exchange of views on the Palestinian-Israeli situation”, China said.
“China and Russia still see (the crisis) more in terms of the United States than in terms of either Palestine or Israel,” said Jon Alterman, director of the Middle East Program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington.
“If the United States can effectively rally the world, it’s bad for them. If the US and its allies grow increasingly isolated, they see that as good for them.”
While the strategies of Russia and China in the Middle East are not fully aligned, they have much in common.
China signalled its growing influence in the Middle East this year when it announced a surprise deal on the restoration of ties between Saudi Arabia and Iran.
Russia too has been improving ties with Iran, which has included supplies of Iranian drones and common cause in backing Syrian President Bashar al-Assad.
Both China and Russia share a history of support for the Palestinians - and are critical of what they say is the marginalisation of them by the United States.
“There’s clearly a shared interest in emphasising the negative role of the US in the conflict,” said Jean-Loup Samaan, senior research fellow at the Middle East Institute of the National University of Singapore. “And that fits within their broader narrative on the need to build an alternative world order to the US.”
Russia’s war in Ukraine gives it an added incentive to align itself with the Palestinian cause.
The United States has been trying, with limited success, to persuade the global south to rally behind Ukraine. Portraying the US as a driver of the conflict helps blunt that effort.
Alterman sees a similar motivation for China, which regards the US as its chief geopolitical rival. “China is trying to play the global south card, irrespective of its close ties to Israel. More than actually supporting Hamas, it is quietly helping build resistance to US efforts to build international support for Israel,” said Alterman.