China and Israel – A Quarter Century of Friendship
On 4 January 2017 The People’s Republic of China and the State of Israel will mark the twenty-fifth anniversary of the establishment of diplomatic relations. This event can be safely described as one of Israel’s major strategic foreign policy achievements. After decades of alienation and at times open hostility on the part of China, both countries have since become close trading partners, and there have been many displays of growing sympathy between the two nations: China, the largest in the world whose population accounts for 28% of the global population, and tiny Israel, whose population is 0.0013% of the world’s population. Today there is significant cooperation in many fields between the two nations, based partly on China’s awareness bordering on admiration for Israel’s hi-tech sector. China also appreciates Israel’s military capabilities, its intelligence gathering talents, its advanced technologies. China has become Israel’s major trading partner in Asia. The volume of Sino-Israel trade that amounted to $50 million in 1992, jumped 200 times to $13 billion in 2016. Chinese investments in Israel in 2016 amounted to over $6 billion, far exceeding American investments in the Jewish state.