China and Israel: A Marriage Made in Haifa

The cozy relationship between Israel and China has been receiving more than it's fair share of column inches over the summer.  Exports to China in 2012 totalled $2.74billion, and with only two companies are currently exporting goods to China, the puff pieces and arslikan seem somewhat misplaced.

In July, an American-Jewish teenagers, Daniel Wultz, was killed when Islamic Jihad bombed a restaurant in Tel Aviv.  Encouraged by the incumbent Israeli government, his parents sued for damages, but officials soon changed their minds when a money trail seemed to implicate Bank of China in a money laundering operation that effectively financed the bombing.  After initially supporting the legal action, Israeli officials are currently trying to make up their minds whether or not to allow a former intelligence operative, Uzi Shaya available to a New York court.

The fact that Israel is delaying the availability of a key expert witness in such a case has been leapt upon by the Chinese, saying that the delay "proves" the Israelis have found fault with their evidence that implicates the Bank of China.  Essentially, the court case may grind to a halt because the Chinese are pressuring Israel into dropping legal action against it's flagship bank.

Beginning their odd relationship after the Six Day War with Israel selling seized weapons to China in order for the PRC to upgrade the weaponry in the PLA, the economic relationship between the two countries has blossomed, and now includes a $300m investment aimed at bringing Israeli businesses to China.

In an 2012 interview with Bloomberg, then-Israeli Finance Minister Yuval Steinetz said of the $300 credit deal "We do hope that if we are able to improve economic ties and connections between Israel and China, it will help us also to explain our positions with regard to the Iranian nuclear threat, with regard to the events in Syria."

Now serving as Israel's chief spook, Steinetz's play is obvious: Israel also hopes to change Beijing's mind when it comes to dealing with Iran.  Repeated efforts to crackdown on Iran's nuclear program have been blocked on more than one occasion by China.  With Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu leading an entourage of Israeli businessmen in May this year aimed to top trade between the two countries at $10billion, Israel should brace itself for a bit more kowtowing before the "Iran issue" can be settled to China's satisfaction.

 

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People's Daily Lashes Out Over Syria

Unsurprisingly, given the level of Chinese involvement on Assad's side in the Syrian civil war, The People's Daily has written a bellicose editorial lambasting the US plan to launch air strikes as early as Thursday.

Both Russia and China have stepped up their warnings to the US about possible military action, Russian foreign ministry spokesman Alexander Lukashevich said "Attempts to bypass the Security Council, once again to create artificial groundless excuses for a military intervention in the region are fraught with new suffering in Syria and catastrophic consequences for other countries of the Middle East and North Africa," he said in a statement.

In an editorial written by "Zheng Song", or The Voice of China, said that the US only want to become involved in the conflict because they want regime change, saying nothing of China's hopes to secure access to oil in the region by providing financial and military support to President Assad.  China's dependency on fossil fuels has led it into something of a power struggle in the region, and they are desperate that the US doesn't get it's hands on Syria's oil like they did after the removal of Saddam Hussein in Iraq.

Neatly dismissing any talk of human rights abuses, and saying little of the alledged gas attack by pro-Assad forces on Syrian people, China has managed to keep it's involvement apparently limited to calls for more patience regarding the United Nations inspections.  According to reports, China has provided the Syrian army with $300 million worth of arms from 2007-2010, and provided intelligence that helped Syrian forces bomb a western arms convoy earlier this year.

Of the three countries providing support to Assad's regime, China has been the quietest, preferring to take the "non-interference" line when it comes to publicly discussing the civil conflict.

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China's Role in Syria

So much for China's much vaunted non-interference policy.  Between 2007 and 2010, China supplied $3million worth of arms to Assad's regime, and in February of this year, the US imposed sanction on a Chinese company for violating nonproliferation legislation by conducting military transfers to Syria.  But China is providing much more than weapons:

Furthermore, in an interview given to the Financial Times in June, Kadri Jamil, Syrian deputy prime minister for the economy, boasted that China has joined Iran and Russia in delivering $500 million a month in oil and credit to Syria. The majority of Syria’s oil is in the largely rebel-held north and northeast of the country, and the network of pipelines connecting the wells to the population centres are vulnerable to rebel attack. As a result, Syrian oil production has fallen by as much as 95 percent during the ongoing conflict, and the importance of Chinese aid should not be underestimated. Chinese financial and material support supplements Russian and Iranian aid and has allowed the Assad war machine to remain militarily effective.

Supporting Assad also allows the Chinese government to prevent it's already irate Sunni-Mulism majority population from radicalizing.  The government has already blamed Syrian Opposition for the unrest in Xinjiang, claiming that they received training in rebel bases in Syria.

Accusations that the Chinese provided intelligence ahead of an air strike that tagargetted a western weapons convoy surfaced last month.  The region is seen is of some interest to the Chinese because of it's vast, hitherto relatively unexploited natural resources, and the Chinese government has placed particular emphasis on getting those resources before any western coalition forces do like they did in Iraq.

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