Three cheers for stability

Above all, China and the U.S. share one essential goal in the Middle East: stability. Students of contemporary politics will note that neither side has done a particularly good job of securing that goal in recent years. But limited cooperation could help provide a path forward for the region.

China has long professed support for the liberation of Palestine through a two-state solution, a goal that it sees as crucial to solving the problems that plague the Middle East. In the early days of the war between Israel and Hamas, Chinese officials walked a tightrope by maintaining trade ties with Israel while refusing to condemn Hamas. But it carefully avoided any direct involvement in the conflict.

Now, China appears to be taking a more active role, expanding its criticism of Israel’s actions in Gaza in what many experts view as an attempt to curry favor with the Global South through a topic in which the U.S. has taken a distinctly unpopular stance.

The Beijing talks, however, signal more room for cooperation. Hamas and Fatah have for years failed to bridge the rupture created by their brief civil war that lasted between 2006 and 2007. After convening in Beijing last month, the groups thanked China for its efforts “to help strengthen Palestinian internal unity and reached an agreement on ideas for future dialogue,” according to China’s Foreign Ministry spokesperson Lin Jian.

The direct impact of China bringing the factions to the negotiating table should not be overstated, according to Dawn Murphy, a professor at the U.S. National War College. When Beijing mediates, it prefers to act as more of a convener than a direct party to the talks, Murphy told RS. Think Qatar, but a lot bigger.

“The way in which [China] sees itself as contributing is by bringing the parties together, providing a platform for discussion and serving as a more neutral actor that has legitimacy in the eyes of all of the actors involved,” Murphy said.

In this sense, China is very much unlike the U.S. Washington has long made clear that it supports Fatah over Hamas, which much of the West views as a terrorist group. But Beijing’s stubborn neutrality gives it the legitimacy to host credible talks that could promote reconciliation and help pave the way for a two-state solution in the longer term.

China’s commitment to neutrality is a reflection of its broader diplomatic strategy of maintaining balanced relations without getting directly involved in its partners’ domestic politics. China is very averse to risking its own credibility, preferring to avoid siding with any particular state in a conflict, as Murphy noted.

China and countries in the Middle East have significant economic relations that have only deepened over time through partnerships in energy, security and technology. Beijing is the biggest purchaser of Saudi Arabian oil and is also one of Israel’s primary trading partners. It is also willing to engage with the Middle East in ways the U.S. won’t: China sells military technology to Saudi Arabia that the U.S. heavily restricts, and provides heavily-sanctioned Iran with much-needed capital and trade partnerships, according to veteran journalist James Dorsey.

Dorsey, who has written a book about China’s role in the Middle East, notes that these partnerships help ensure that states in the region won't act against Chinese interests. Most Middle Eastern states have stayed out of the Taiwan issue and have not condemned the ongoing human rights abuses occurring in China’s Xinjiang region. “That’s one Chinese objective, and they’ve been very successful in that,” Dorsey told RS.

But that doesn’t mean that China is all-powerful. For all of Beijing’s rhetoric, it has not been able to alter the course of the current conflict wracking Gaza, Dorsey noted. When you look at negotiation processes for a ceasefire today between Israel and Hamas, as well as discussions about what the post-war world will look like, “China is not in the room.”

Murphy says it’s in the U.S. interest to not dismiss China’s desire to resolve these conflicts, citing the Iran-Saudi normalization deal that China helped broker. While negotiations were well underway before China got involved, the outcome of the talks was one that all parties, including the U.S., benefited from.

China is in a unique position to seek further detente in the region, Murphy says. Because it has positive relations with every country in the Middle East, as well as legitimacy in the eyes of their rulers, Beijing could theoretically facilitate negotiations between most of the region’s states.

Indeed, the Biden administration has acknowledged this in limited ways, as Ali Wyne of the International Crisis Group told RS. “Growing instability in the Middle East benefits neither the United States nor China, so U.S. and Chinese efforts in the region need not be zero-sum,” Wyne said. “[I]n recent months, the Biden administration has stated that it would welcome China's help in preventing the conflict between Israel and Hamas from metastasizing into a regional conflagration.”

Dorsey, for his part, warns that China’s facilitation has not yielded concrete results thus far. China has also failed to show a willingness to take risks by taking more tangible action, Christopher Chivvis of the Carnegie Endowment told RS.

“China has demonstrated that its willingness to make sacrifices to try to bring peace and stability to the region is pretty limited,” Chivvis said. For example, China doesn't encourage restraint from Iran despite the leverage its relationship with the country provides.

If China could match its actions more with its rhetoric, it would serve both Beijing and Washington, Chivvis said. “It would be in China's interest to try to demonstrate that it's willing to actually pay some costs in order to deal with some of the global challenges that are out there,” he argued.

The Ukraine problem

In Europe, China has had less room to maneuver. Despite its efforts to push for peace negotiations, Beijing has faced strong criticism from the West in recent months for allegedly supplying tech that supports Russia's military invasion in Ukraine.

As Chivvis told RS, China has tried to walk a fine line between its close ties with Russia and its need to maintain access to European markets and capital. Close trade ties with Europe allow China’s domestic economy to grow at a pace that promotes stability at home, Chivvis noted.

This careful balance has been hard to maintain amid China’s indirect support for Russia’s war. Relations with Europe have been further strained as Chinese goods flood EU markets and price out European producers.

But some steps in the right direction are being taken. This week, during Xi’s multi-stop visit to Europe, he and Macron surprised observers when they agreed to back a worldwide truce during this year’s Olympics — a pause that could serve as a jumping off point for peace talks in Ukraine.

“French officials hope Xi's endorsement is a sign that he could use his influence to persuade Russia to reach a truce when President Vladimir Putin travels to China later this month,” Reuters reported. The French also said Xi made clear that “Beijing did not intend to supply weapons to Moscow and that it was ready to look into the issue of dual-use materials that enabled Russia's war effort.”

As China’s military and economic partnerships grow, the wars in Ukraine and Gaza have provided China with an opening to increase its diplomatic efforts, according to Wyne of ICG. Nonetheless, Beijing “does not presently seem positioned to make breakthroughs.” Chivvis agrees, saying that significant cooperation between the U.S and China is a long way off given the contentious state of relations between the two powers.

But there's no denying one obvious truth: It would be far easier to solve the Ukraine war with China's help than without it. It’s now up to the U.S. to decide whether it’s willing to face that fact.