China, which the West criticizes for inhibiting itself in the conflagration in Ukraine, is facing the new war in Gaza with many more reflexes and even taking the initiative. This Monday, its Foreign Minister called for a ceasefire to stop the bloodshed. Wang Yi, after meeting in Beijing with his Russian counterpart Sergei Lavrov, suggested that the great powers should come together to prevent a humanitarian disaster.
"The United Nations Security Council must take action and major powers must play an active role," Wang told Lavrov, who is in Beijing to pave the way for President Vladimir Putin's visit to China that begins Tuesday.
"It is imperative that a ceasefire be established, that the two sides return to the negotiating table and that an emergency humanitarian channel be established to avoid a new humanitarian disaster," Wang defended.
Last week, Wang took advantage of Von der Leyen and Blinken's unqualified support for Netanyahu - while Israeli aircraft bombed Gaza relentlessly - to present China as a power concerned about the suffering of civilians. A contrast that has not gone unnoticed by 1.6 billion Muslims. Although the head of European diplomacy, Josep Borrell, was much more even-handed in his recent visit to Beijing and Brussels clarified his support for the Palestinian civilian population, the damage had already been done.
Wang, in fact, attributed the root of the conflict to "the historical injustice" suffered by the Palestinians and went beyond the demand for a Palestinian state, by putting on the table "the return to their land" of several generations of expelled Palestinians. since the Nakba of 1948. Something that must have made Netanyahu's government, the most extremist in the history of Israel, stand on end.
China is, in any case, one of the few countries with a true ascendancy over all the countries in the area. Russia - little less than a pest in the West - maintains good relations with all parties. Although it was not Moscow, but Beijing that last March led to the reestablishment of relations between Iran and Saudi Arabia. For both hydrocarbon producers, China is their first market.
The Chinese initiative, which once again appears as a potential mediator in an entrenched conflict, demonstrates that decades of discretion at the international level have gone down in history under the presidency of Xi Jinping. The Chinese prominence occurs in an important week for the projection of its international profile. Beijing hosts the third World Forum of the New Silk Roads, with representatives from many of the 150 countries that in the last ten years have signed infrastructure construction agreements with the second power.
China's firm opposition to "collective punishment" by Israel, following the bloody infiltration of Hamas two Saturdays ago, is winning it sympathy in many peripheral countries. Something detected from Brussels and Washington, where the carte blanche to Israeli Prime Minister Beniamin Netanyahu is beginning to be qualified. US President Joe Biden himself has told him that reoccupying Gaza would be "a bad idea."
The land invasion of the overpopulated Palestinian strip, announced for the weekend, would also be delayed. In Riyadh or Cairo they have let Secretary of State, Antony Blinken, know what they fear could be the consequences for the entire region and even beyond. Demonstrations of solidarity with Palestine have taken place this weekend, from Rabat to Kuala Lumpur, passing through Karachi.
It should be added that Saudi Prince Mohamed bin Salman and Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi have had a telephone conversation that was unthinkable until recently. Likewise, Iran's Foreign Minister has communicated, from Qatar, where the Hamas leadership is located, that his country will not remain idly by if the Tsahal crosses the Rubicon.
His disciples from Hezbollah, in southern Lebanon, are already playing on Tel Aviv's nerves, due to the possibility of a front opening in the north. The risk of a conflagration that engulfs the entire region, between Iran and the Mediterranean, is real.
In this context, Beijing hopes to play a pacifying role. The coincidence with the New Silk Roads forum also gives China the opportunity to present itself to the world as a "constructive force," according to the official media Global Times, "while the US fans the flames." The problem with which this story clashes is that Xi Jinping will have at his side, as an exceptional guest, a certain Vladimir Vladimirovich Putin.
Finally, it is worth noting, in relation to the massacres in Israel and Gaza, the contrast between the considered reaction of Xi Jinping's China and that of the government of Narendra Modi, a close ally of Netanyahu even before gaining power in New Delhi. An even more striking turn if one takes into account that India was the standard bearer of the Palestinian cause for decades and only recognized the state of Israel three decades ago.
