Opinion

Israel-Gaza war: what China can and should do for peace in the Middle East

Beijing must use its growing influence in the region to prevent hostilities from spreading

Longer-term peace requires solutions to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and Iran nuclear impasse, and that means cooperating with the other key player in the region: the US

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Senior Colonel Zhou Bo (ret) is a senior fellow at the Centre for International Security and Strategy at Tsinghua University and a China Forum expert.

Published: 5:30am, 1 Nov 2023

What is the difference between the Russia-Ukraine conflict and the Israel-Hamas conflict? The answer is: no one knows when the former will end, while no one knows when the latter will begin again even if it ends.

Can China help win peace in the Middle East? The question is asked because of the obvious limitations of the other major powers at the moment.

Russia has considerable influence in the Middle East, but given that it is fighting a war of its own, with Iran believed to be one of its arms suppliers, it has little hope of winning Israel’s trust. The EU is deeply polarised and powerless in the face of pro-Palestine Muslim protests across the continent and beyond. The US, being Israel’s staunch ally, has historically provided unconditional support to Israel in all conflicts.

That leaves China. After brokering a historic rapprochement between once-estranged Saudi Arabia and Iran, a more ambitious Beijing had been trying to initiate peace talks between the Israelis and Palestinians even before the latest conflict erupted.