China’s meeting with Mahmoud Abbas wasn’t really about peace

Palestinian National Authority President Mahmoud Abbas’s visit to China drew international attention last week as Beijing expressed interest in “playing a positive role” in the Israel-Palestine conflict by offering to mediate the peace process.

But a key player was missing in such talks: Israel, which has paid no mind to Beijing’s proposal. Abbas’s visit was largely symbolic and more about China affirming its position in the Middle East and on the global stage rather than brokering a realistic peace deal, experts say.

During Abbas’s four-day trip, the two parties upgraded bilateral relations to a “strategic partnership,” and President Xí Jìnpíng 习近平 expressed support for Palestine’s full membership in the United Nations. Abbas expressed interest in expanding Belt and Road cooperation and support for China’s new global initiatives.

Xi offered to mediate Israeli-Palestine peace talks and put forward a three-point proposal that advocates for an independent Palestinian state based on 1967 borders with East Jerusalem as its capital, more economic support for Palestinians, and a continued peace process. He also expressed interest in playing an “active part” in intra-Palestinian reconciliation, a move that could be “deleterious” to the peace process if China does not consider Israel’s concerns about groups like Hamas or Hezbollah, which China has refused to treat as terrorist organizations, said Tuvia Gering, a researcher at the Diane & Guilford Glazer Foundation Israel-China Policy Center at the Institute for National Security Studies (INSS).

“China is biased, contrary to what it would like to portray,” Gering said. “It absolves Palestinians of agency and responsibility for the conflict, fails to grasp local dynamics, and ignores Israel’s security challenges in its battle against terrorism. It essentially applies the same double standard that it accuses America of using.”

The peace process in Israel has traditionally been moderated by the United States, but talks have been stalled since 2014. According to Chinese state media, Abbas said in meetings that “Palestine believes in China’s wisdom and just position, and looks forward to China playing a greater role in promoting internal reconciliation in Palestine and realizing peace in the Middle East.”

This isn’t the first time China has attempted to intervene in Israeli-Palestinian affairs. Xi’s new proposal closely resembles those China presented in 2013, 2017, and 2021; Beijing has also organized informal peace symposia with Palestinian and Israeli activists four times in the past two decades.

China has long favored a two-state solution and has enjoyed a relationship with Palestinian organizations dating back to the Cold War era. It formally recognized the state of Palestine in 1988, shortly before establishing diplomatic ties with Israel.

But in the years since, China’s relationship with Israel has far surpassed its relations with Palestine despite constant lip service paid to Palestinians. The P.R.C. continues to send aid to Palestine in small increments: This June, it pledged $1 million in humanitarian aid, paling in comparison with the United States’ $500 million pledge between 2021 and 2024. China, meanwhile, has become one of Israel’s largest trading partners, and their relationship continues to grow; 2022 was a record year for Chinese-Israeli bilateral trade at $17.62 billion, up from $15.02 billion the year before.

That dynamic may shift as Beijing expands its influence in the region, said Gedaliah Afterman, the head of the Asia Policy Program at the Abba Eban Institute for Diplomacy and International Relations at Reichman University. Israel’s recent cooling ties with China at the behest of the United States could negatively impact Israeli interests in the region as China becomes a more active player.

“The Chinese see the Israeli-Palestinian conflict as a possible pawn in the great superpower competition with the United States. Specifically, it’s an instrument for them to strengthen their public opinion or perception in the Arab world,” he said.

The Abbas visit is “not about peace”

For China, the meeting with Abbas has little to do with Israel and more to do with maintaining its position and proving its commitment to other Middle East partners as a “peacemaker,” after it successfully helped broker a rapprochement between Saudi Arabia and Iran. Since then, China has expressed its desire to continue playing the mediator by intervening in both the Israel-Palestine conflict and the war in Ukraine.

It’s an offer that the Israelis are not paying any mind to. Israel and other countries in the Middle East have no interest in picking a side in the great superpower competition over the Middle East, experts say, though Middle East nations have been warming up to China as its presence has expanded there.

Limited progress on the Palestinian-Israeli conflict in recent years makes the likelihood of peace in the near future highly unlikely. Israel remains preoccupied with domestic issues, such as its frequent changes in leadership and a planned judicial overhaul that has sparked nationwide protests.

“The situation right now on the ground, inside Palestine and in Israel as well, the conditions are nowhere near anything that could lead to even reengaging in negotiations in any good faith,” Gering said. “You won’t find the answers with China, for sure, especially if you don’t bring any Israelis with you. So this is not about peace. This is about two leaders trying to show support for their core interests.”

But China’s outreach to the Palestinians has the potential to be more than symbolic, says She Gangzheng, a professor of Middle East Studies at Tsinghua University in Beijing. China could work with its partners in the region — including Iran, Saudi Arabia, and Israel — or expand business partnerships or investment in Palestine to push the Palestinian issue forward.

“China could move on the more concrete aspects, for example, to negotiate with the Israeli side and the Palestinian side to have more development-oriented cooperations, or China could help bring a level of better employment or living standard for the Palestinians,” She said.

Support for China’s core interests

Both sides have benefited from Abbas’s recent visit to China in ways unrelated to peace: Palestine’s upgraded ties give it more legitimacy on the international stage, while Abbas’s affirmation of China’s core interests in a joint declaration issued last week helps China’s international image and narratives, especially about Xinjiang.

The first clause in a five-point joint declaration issued by both sides last week affirmed that Palestine adheres to the one-China principle and supports China’s policies in Hong Kong and Xinjiang. “Xinjiang-related issues are not human rights issues, but issues of anti-terrorism, de-radicalization, and anti-separatism. The Palestinian side firmly opposes using Xinjiang-related issues as an excuse to interfere with Chinese internal affairs,” it read.

The statement comes weeks after a delegation of officials from Arab League member states — of which Palestine is a part — visited Xinjiang and rejected accusations of genocide. Uyghur groups have strongly criticized the statement. The East Turkistan government in exile responded by condemning Palestine’s upgraded ties with China, writing that the partnership “shamelessly supports China’s ongoing colonization, genocide, and occupation campaign in East Turkistan.”