SIGNAL – Sino-Israel Global Network and Academic Leadership

Illustration by Nadya Yeh

The fascinating history and current state of Israel’s ties to China — Q&A with Carice Witte

Israel was the first country in the Middle East to recognize the People’s Republic of China in January 1950. China wasn’t as quick to recognize Israel. And before Israel felt comfortable reaching out to China officially, it was looking for the okay from the U.S. because it was the U.S. and Europe that gave the push to create the state of Israel in 1948. By the time [Israel’s first prime minister] Ben-Gurion was able to get feedback from the Americans, China had already signed onto the Bandung Conference agreement and joined the boycott of Israel.

It was only in the ‘70s when Israel connected to China when Beijing was interested in arms, and the U.S. was interested in using Israel to help bring China out of the Soviet Union orbit. As long as that was the case, we were encouraged by the U.S. to be friendly with China under the table, through Shaul Eisenberg, who was an arms dealer among other things…

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Divergent perceptions of China impact geopolitics

Countries in the Middle East view China’s growing power and influence in starkly different terms from the US and many of its Western allies. These alternative strategic perceptions are likely to have a decisive impact on geopolitics in the years to come. In some ways, they already are.

US policymakers on both sides of the political spectrum have made it clear that they view China’s growing power and influence as the No 1 threat to America’s global primacy and the liberal international order at large…