Geostrategic Media Political Commentary, Analysis, Security, Defense
The violent conflict between Israel and Gaza has been spreading in the Middle East, both military and diplomatic manners. Though the great powers refrained from their direct involvement in the war, perhaps the military support through weapon supply couldn’t be denied. Compared to the Cold War, if not exclusively, the ongoing conflict denotes the potential Cold War between the East and the West. Given the firm support of NATO members to Israel and the instalment of warships in the Mediterranean, the Western powers, especially the USA, have been at the forefront in indulging Israel through military and ideological capacities. For Gaza, on the other side, the Arab World has actively supported the atrocities and humanitarian crisis caused by the Israeli indiscriminate attacks. The war between Israel and Gaza has now been turned the side towards Lebanon, following the missile attacks of Hezbollah and the purge attacks, in response, by Israel. Taking the side of the Middle East and Arab Unity, China has firmly agreed to extend support to Lebanon; moreover, the rise of China as a participant in the current crisis has divided the war under two significant blocs, like the Cold War.
The Middle East Conundrum
To understand the Middle East, especially for Eastern scholarship, it seems necessary to take care of the engagement of the USA and how the Middle East became unstable because of the oil production, democratic upsurge through the Arab Spring and the Jewish population. The Modern History of the Middle East has largely been the history of oil production, supply and crisis; furthermore, the rise of the USA in the Middle East was based on the requirement for Oil, which forced the Americans to invade the Arab countries. Since 1973, the Middle East’s significant instabilities and the USA’s foreign policy have been linked with oil. In 1990, the USA formally engaged in military invasion as a response to the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait and ended in 2011 with the overthrow of the government of Saddam Hussain. Apart from that, Arab Spring had a short-term impact on the Arab World with student protests against the authoritarian governments and later turned into failure due to the internal contradictions in the Islamic system and democratic reforms and the apathetic nature of the USA towards the Middle East in terms of policy and resource management. The Jewish population despite the disagreements among historians, the USA has been a firm believer in the protection and self-determination of Jews, which eventually took the shape of Israel in 1948. Except President Truman, almost all the American Presidents were inclined toward Israel and constructed strategic partnerships to extend military support to Israel.
Why China; Why Now
The rise of China in the Middle East has been a conscious uprising of the cooperative engagement to streamline the region’s growth, which was and has been under the constant violence perpetuated by Western powers from time to time. For the last four decades, the region has faced geopolitical and geoeconomic problems, from foreign invasion to oil-based sanctions, which debar the region from self-determination and self-regulation of oil production, distribution and price settlement. Given such issues, China has been a vital economic and geopolitical actor that emerged in the region with a vision to integrate the entire region with fair equity and friendship. After monitoring the current political condition of the region, China upholds the sovereignty and integrity of the Arab World and also the peaceful inhabitation of the Jewish population in Israel without taking any offensive stand against the people of Gaza. Respecting the two-state solution upheld by UNO, China has also been convinced by the principle of mutual co-existence of both Israel and Palestine and immediate ceasefire to restore lasting peace in the region.
China’s Passive to Active Voice
The Eastward movement of China has a more-than-military stand, propagating the idea of shared humanity through the abdication of single Western hegemony from the Middle East, securing the self-determination of Palestinians, and restraining Israel from crimes against humanity. China, as an economic and strategic shareholder in the Middle East, reiterated the vitality of a two-state solution for the Israel-Gaza conflict, including diplomatic negotiations to reduce violence and military engagement. The passivity of China on the Middle East has been changed through the recent address of the Foreign Minister of China, Wang Yi, at the General Assembly of the UN, where the Minister extended the support of China in safeguarding the sovereignty and security of Lebanon and the Arab World in general. He confirmed the stand of China, through his address, on the “side of justice and the side of Arab brothers, including Lebanon”. Through his words, China has placed multiple invisible meanings before the Middle East be disclosed and opened up a new dimension of excellent power engagement.
The Economic Dimension
This present analysis could not be diverted from the economic importance of the Middle East for China. The bilateral trade between China and Gulf countries was $300 billion in 2023; China’s exports to the Middle East were estimated to be around $138 billion in the same year. After Russia, China has been the second largest oil consumer. Such economic engagement would naturally pave the way for robust and diverse commercial relations. From the initial phase of the Israel-Gaza conflict, China has been upholding the immediate de-escalation of conflicts to stabilise the economy and reduce the further complexities of trade. Apart from the bilateral trade performance, China has also induced the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) in the Middle East countries to materialise long-term economic integration through this flagship project. China’s growing energy needs would not be fulfilled without peace in the region.
My Enemy’s Enemy is My Friend
Based on the strategy of Kautilya’s Artha Shastra, the enemy of an enemy would be a vital friend. The same analogy could be applied in the context of China’s active stand on the Israel-Lebanon conflict. In geopolitics, the states intend to establish relations with the rivals of their enemies, knowing the possibility of natural preference. Despite ideological and political heterogeneity, the selection of friends, especially in geopolitics, depends upon the enemies.
The prolonged cooperation between Israel and the USA has made it imperative for China to take a concrete step for balancing the region and minimise the further acceleration of conflict. Due to the ideology and economic policies, China and the USA have been standing at the edge of a competitive world order, pretending to take the hegemonic role, expressing the will power and monitoring mutual gain. In such a competitive geopolitical horizon, considering the current crisis in the Middle East, China and the USA are the two mutually exclusive in different stages of the event.
Despite the agreement on the two-state solution, the great powers have been taking their stands suited to the interests, calculating the potential gain and loss. The conflict between Israel and Lebanon denotes the failure of mechanisms developed to futile the ground for cultivating cooperation at the global level. Like the Cold War, this conflict has again opened the door to selecting a friend based on the principle that – “A Friend of All is a Friend of None”.
