China is one of the emerging powers of the world that has tried to deal with the crises in West Asia in a way different from that of the West. China’s position on the Gaza war is controversial and ambiguous for many observers. While the US and Europe immediately after the start of the war in Gaza declared their firm support for the Israeli genocide and deemed the killing of Palestinians legitimate and self-defense, China took a different position. From the beginning, China’s approach to the war has been conservative.
In the third Belt and Road summit, Chinese President Xi Jinping reiterated his country’s long-held support to the two-state solution and called for a humanitarian corridor to deliver aids to Gaza. China rejected to describe Hamas’s Operation Al-Aqsa Storm as a terrorist attack, drawing the ire of Israeli officials. It, however, called the Israeli bombardment of Gaza a “genocide” in violation of the international laws.
The Asian heavyweight also presented itself as a peacemaker and called for a ceasefire and the establishment of a Palestinian state, and requested holding an international peace conference to resolve the Palestinian issue as soon as possible. Many countries in the South sympathize with Palestine, so the call for a peace conference is an opportunity that China can use to support its leadership in the South.
Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi even went further, describing the Israeli carpet bombing of Gaza beyond self-defense. Beijing, at the same, time refused to condemn Hamas.
Chinese opposition to US attacks on Iraq and Syria
Beijing’s approach is in stark contrast to that of Washington, which has not only been one of the ardent supporters of the Israeli regime since its establishment and supported Tel Aviv with billions in military aid, but also since then has acted as Israel’s main backer on the world stage.
It is now clear that China is seeking to chart a different path from the US and its allies and their unconditional support for the Israeli regime. The Chinese believe that the tensions in West Asia are caused by the wrong policies of the Americans, which have led the region to crisis and instability in the past decades. That is why, in recent weeks, they have adopted tough positions against the US adventures in the region.
After recent air raids on Syria and Iraq, China condemned the American bombing. The spokesman to Chinese foreign Affairs Ministry Wang Wenbin said Beijing opposes any actions that breach the UN charter and violate the territorial sovereignty and security of nations. He described West Asian situation combustible, adding that China calls on all sides to commit to international laws and show self-restraint.
Chinese envoy to the UN Zhang Jun in a Security Council meeting said that the international community should condemn the US military actions in Iraq and Syria. He described the American attacks a gross violation of the two countries’ sovereignty and territorial integrity, adding that the US does not seek peace, rather, it seeks expansion of conflict in the region.
China’s Red Sea strategy
Additionally, China’s opposition to the American policies in the Red Sea developments is crystal clear. Despite the fact that the US tried to paint Ansarullah’s operations against the Israeli interests in the Red Sea a threat to the international navigation and involve other countries in its naval coalition, China, aware of the true goals of Washington, refused to join the game of its Western rival.
China, along with Russia, abstained in the Security Council from voting to resolution condemning Ansarullah’s missile operations, and the representative of China to the Security Council, explaining this abstention, said that this resolution did not take into account the observations of Beijing, Moscow and other countries and granted tacit legitimacy to the US-led naval coalition.
At the beginning, China thought that the resolution will help restore peace to the Red Sea, but with the start of US-Britain bombardment of Yemen, it called for stopping the aggression.
The spokesperson to the Chinese Foreign Ministry said in a press briefing that “China calls for stopping the attacks on commercial ships and asks all relevant parties to refrain from igniting the fire in the region and ensure the safety of shipping in the Red Sea.”
It is noteworthy that China refused to blame or even name any group behind the attacks, indicating that Beijing does not blame Ansarullah for the crisis in the Red Sea. Wenbin also implicitly confirmed it and said: “The tension in the Red Sea is a demonstration of the spillover of the Gaza war.”
The priority is now to end Gaza war to prevent heightened tensions that can risk sliding out of control. “China is interested to work with all parties to calm the situation down and protect security and stability in the Red Sea,” he added.
Actually, China adopted an interpretation different from the US and its allies which view the tensions and crisis solely related to the freedom of navigation.
The Chinese officials have realized the fact that Ansarullah’s attacks in the Red Sea are the result of the wrong policies of the US and the Israeli regime which instead of easing the tensions, beat the drums of war in the region. Leaders of Sana’a have repeatedly asserted that their operations are only directed against Israeli ships and their Western allies, and that there is no threat to other countries, and they have emphasized that if the war in Gaza ends, they will also stop their operations. But despite this, Washington, instead of stopping Tel Aviv’s killing machine, turned the Red Sea into a powder keg.
Though China maintains its naval presence in the region to maintain peace and fight piracy, it has not showed a will to act as a main protector of the regional security. Although Beijing built its only overseas base in Djibouti near the Bab-el-Mandeb Strait, it does not seek to take the traditional role of the US as the superior military power and protector of security in the Red Sea. This is why it does not participate in the naval alliance of Washington.
China’s general responses to the Red Sea crisis have so far been limited to calls for an end to attacks on commercial shipping and veiled criticism of US-led military operations against Ansarullah.
Analysts agree that Beijing’s reluctance to address the Red Sea crisis reflects Beijing’s geopolitical calculations.
Mordechai Chaziza, a lecturer and expert of China-Middle East relations at Ashkelon Academic College, told CNN that “China has no interest in joining a Western coalition led by the US; such an action would strengthen the position of the US as a regional hegemon and weaken the Chinese position in the region... The US-UK-led coalition does the heavy lifting, while China watches. That is a bad look. Regional leaders probably see China as a paper tiger.”
Politically and diplomatically, China maintains its balanced relations with all parties in Yemen and follows the policy of non-interference and neutrality in the affairs of countries, and its focus is on partnership while staying away from security obligations, to the extent that despite the American request to China to put pressure on Iran to reduce tensions in the Red Sea, Beijing refused.
Over the past few months, the US has completely isolated itself at the UN and other international institutions due to its policy towards the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, and this is an opportunity for Beijing to improve its global standing and boost its foothold in West Asia.
This precisely has a role in the Chinese strategy, revealing how isolated the Americans are now and how they are out of sync with the rest of the world and how they are hypocritical.
Red Sea tensions a positive point to China’s Road and Belt Initiative
China’s interests and activities in the Red Sea reflect themselves in the country’s economic interactions. Beijing sets economic partnership, along with its policy of non-intervention, as the main path to win friends and influence in the Red Sea. China’s key interests rest on supporting business and ensuring a stable flow of trade and energy resources, economic investments in the region, and building relationships through China-led regional multilateral mechanisms.
Through rapidly expanding its economic, diplomatic and military activities in the region, Beijing has become a major player in the Red Sea over the past two decades, and this engagement, particularly through the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), has provided infrastructure and economic opportunities and profits to the region that can benefit the Red Sea countries under certain conditions.
Though China itself takes damage from the Red Sea tensions that threaten international navigation, from a specific perspective, the Ansarullah-US confrontation plays into Chinese hands. In September 2023, the US unveiled, along with India and Arab countries, the India-Middle East-Europe trade route as a rival to China’s RBI, but with the start of Gaza war, the project remained unfinished.
Washington sees control over the Red Sea a particular strategic objective, as many Chinese products are shipped through this maritime corridor to Europe and North Africa, but this American warmongering costs Washington more than it does Beijing.
India, as a rival to China that focused more on this project, is now disappointed with the implementation of Washington’s plan, and the visit of the Indian foreign minister to Iran to develop economic relations, as well as the upcoming visit of business officials from New Delhi to Tehran in March to develop infrastructure and invest in Chabahar Port of Iran is also indicative of the fact that Indians are trying to prioritize alternative corridors. Therefore, the failure of the American plan is a great service for the realization of corridor of China which has taken many measures to develop the infrastructure of this project in the past decade.
According to a report by Chatham House institute, China does not wish to replace the US in the Middle East, but it, without doubt, is pleased to see the US involved in a new conflict in the region. Chinese experts believe that as much as the non-East Asian conflicts are more strategic and require more of Washington’s focus, China will get more time and room to prove its strategic hegemony in the Indian and Pacific Oceans.
In general, China’s ultimate objective behind its view on the Middle East developments is to degrade the global position of the US and win in a war of discourses with an investment on solidarity with the Palestinians as many countries of the South back the Palestinian cause against the Israeli crimes.
In the peace agreement between Iran and Saudi Arabia, China showed that it can resolve regional crises as a peace mediator, and in the Palestinian conflict, it has declared its readiness to mediate between the two sides to find a lasting solution.
The Chinese leaders think that the Palestinian crisis as the longest global crisis of the past seven decades is because of the destructive role of the US that not only has failed to create peace and stability in the occupied territories, but also fueled the tensions with its unwavering support to Israeli regime.
In Beijing’s viewpoint, what is happening in Gaza is an
outcome of decades of Israeli crimes against the innocent Palestinian
nation, and the anti-Israeli actions of resistance groups to liberate
the occupied lands is not only a terrorist action, but also
self-defense. Though Ansarullah’s operations are causing disruptions to
the sea trade in the Red Sea, China understands that they are not
without logical basis as the US has not picked a wise way to settle the
problem but a way that only makes things worse.