ANALYSIS: An Anti-American Agenda is Behind CCP Criticism of Israel

Rocket shells litter the grass outside a house where civilians and solders were killed days earlier by Hamas terrorists, in Be'eri, Israel, on Oct. 12, 2023. Alexi J. Rosenfeld/Getty Images

China’s foreign minister Wang Yi recently said that Israel had gone too far in its response to the brutal Hamas incursion on Oct. 7. Since the Hamas attack, China’s silence had been significant as it avoided explicitly condemning the terrorist organization. On Oct. 14, Mr. Wang made a direct statement criticizing Israel’s response.

A China expert believes that behind Mr. Wang’s statement is the Chinese Communist Party’s (CCP’s) consistent anti-American, anti-Western stance.

On Oct. 7, hundreds of Hamas terrorists broke through Israel’s border fence and carried out bloody massacres in more than twenty towns and neighborhoods, burning homes and killing villagers, including babies. It is confirmed that more than 1,400 Israeli soldiers and civilians were killed.

On Oct. 13, at a press conference following the conclusion of the China–EU High-Level Strategic Dialogue, the Chinese foreign minister stated that the root cause of the Palestinian–Israeli conflict was an unrealized Palestinian aspiration for statehood.

“Israel has the right to statehood, so does Palestine. The Israelis have obtained the safeguards for survival, but who will care about the survival of the Palestinians? The Jewish nation is no longer homeless in the world, but when will the Palestinian nation return to its home?” he said.

The next day, when speaking to his Saudi Arabian counterpart, Faisal bin Farhan Al Saud, Mr. Wang said that Israel’s actions have “gone beyond self-defense.”

Ceasefire Agreements ‘Enabled Hamas to Survive and Strike Again’

In an interview with The Epoch Times, Carl Schuster, former director of operations at U.S. Pacific Command’s Joint Intelligence Center, said that Beijing’s effort to please its Middle Eastern allies comes at the cost of its goodwill with Israel.

“Israeli leaders remember that the last two ‘ceasefire and peace agreements’ simply enabled Hamas to survive and strike again. They are not interested in a ceasefire or agreement that leaves Hamas intact and able to strike again,” he said.

Founded in 1987, Hamas is an antisemitic organization dedicated to the extinction of Israel. Hamas has turned Gaza into a base for terrorist attacks against Israel.

Hamas urged Palestinian citizens not to flee in the face of Israeli attacks and actively thwarted evacuation efforts. Israel, meanwhile, has taken measures to protect Palestinian civilians, such as dropping leaflets and warning civilians to leave military targets before attacks.

“We know that Hamas are using innocent Palestinian civilians as human shields; they have embedded themselves in civilian communities,” Tom Tugendhat, the UK’s Minister of State for Security, told the UN on Tuesday.

During the Oct. 7 attack on Israel, Hamas carried out a massacre at a music festival, raping women and taking babies and the elderly hostage.

Yet in the face of such attacks initiated by a terrorist organization, the CCP flatly asked Israel to “exercise restraint” and cease “hostile actions.”

“Israel should just have learned that China is not a real friend,” Anders Corr, publisher of the Journal of Political Risk and Epoch Times contributor, said in an interview with the publication.

China ‘Abandoned’ Its Balancing Act

Mr. Schuster said that the CCP’s policies in the Middle East are based on its opposition to Western policies, particularly those of the United States.

“Beijing has been a ‘rejectionist power’ since the PRC [People’s Republic of China] was founded,” he said.

In February 2023, as the West was sanctioning Iran for its development of nuclear weapons, CCP leader Xi Jinping visited Iran to show his support for the Iranian regime.

Iran's President Ebrahim Raisi (R) and Chinese leader Xi Jinping pose for a photo on the sidelines of a meeting at the Shanghai Cooperation Organization summit in Samarkand, Uzbekistan, on Sept. 16, 2022. Shen Hong/Xinhua via AP

Mr.  Xi and Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi attended the signing of 20 cooperation agreements including trade and tourism, adding to the previous 25-year strategy agreement, signed in 2021, to cooperate on oil, industrial, and other developments.

Beijing has also maintained a friendly political and economic relationship with UN-sanctioned Syria. The Chinese leader hosted Syrian President Bashar Assad in September, giving him a high-level reception and declaring: “The establishment of a strategic partnership between China and Syria will become an important milestone in the history of bilateral relations, continuing from the past and opening up to the future.”

In its coverage of the ongoing Israeli–Hamas conflict, the CCP’s state-run media have emphasized Israel’s bombing of Gaza rather than the Hamas attack, even accusing Washington of so-called “malign interference” in the Middle East.

“I see China has moved closer to the Palestinian position. They are calling for a ceasefire but have dropped all pretense of a neutral position,” Mr. Schuster said. “They are using the war to condemn the U.S., placing blame for the conflict on America.”

Mr. Schuster said China “abandoned the balancing act” much faster than he anticipated. “They have resumed the use of the Palestinian issue as a tool against the West in general and the U.S. in particular. Beijing is hoping to draw Riyadh and Egypt away from the U.S. and sees supporting Palestine as a means of doing so.”

A 75-Year Partnership

Mr. Shuster pointed out that U.S. support for Israel was initially based on the American public’s support for the establishment of the state of Israel. When Israel declared its independence in 1948, the United States was the first country to recognize Israel’s national status.

U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken (R) steps off a plane upon arrival to Amman, Jordan, on Oct. 12, 2023. Jacquelyn Martin/Pool/AFP

Mr. Corr concurred: “Jewish people wanted their own land in Israel after the Holocaust and before. This seemed reasonable and was supported by most states in the international system after World War II.”

After the establishment of Israel, successive U.S. governments have declared that the United States will unwaveringly support Israel.

In a fact sheet issued in January this year, the U.S. State Department said the 75-year partnership between the United States and Israel “has been built on mutual interests and shared democratic values from its inception, with Israelis and Americans united by their commitment to democracy, economic prosperity, and regional security.”

U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken visited Israel on Oct. 12, pledging that the United States will never falter from its support for Israel and condemning Hamas for a “litany of brutality and inhumanity.”