China's role in Palestinian unity - perspectives from Washington

After reading a lot of analysis about last weekend’s meetings in Beijing during which 14 Palestinian groups agreed to present a united front, I wanted to get a sense of how people in DC were thinking about it. Like I wrote last week, I’m skeptical; I don’t see a fundamental change in how these factions build trust. They have very different interests and diverging visions of what a Palestinian state looks like. And I don’t see how China’s involvement builds toward that, so my take is that hosting the talks was the accomplishment for Beijing; it did something that the US can’t do. Will Zhai Jun, China’s special envoy for the Middle East, be the guy working phones to lower temperatures during inevitable crises? I REALLY doubt it, but time will tell.

A Western diplomat who served in Palestine and has worked on Israel/Palestine for years wrote to me late last week with the following:

- the agreement is a sign from both main parties (Fatah and Hamas) of the need to give a (small, symbolic boost) to China's role in the region, but nothing more

- both parties are happy to "stick it to the U.S." a bit, but not in any meaningful way, so this move is perfect

- neither party thinks China will do anything more to implement this deal, and I don't think China does either

- real implementation of a new power sharing arrangement will only be decided by President Abbas, and all signs I'm seeing are that he's in no mood to share power with Hamas. This is for a variety of reasons , but the two biggest are: 1) he's a megalomaniac; 2) he knows that any power sharing arrangement would need to be blessed (at least quietly) by the U.S., and the U.S. policy on Hamas is nowhere close to this

Seems very reasonable to me.

Looking beyond the first-level issues, a different question for me is how China’s role impacts other actors that have a stake in Israel and Palestine. There are countless regional actors who are deeply involved and China’s engagement has the potential to affect policy for countries that have their own preferences. No doubt a lot of that was the focus of talks during the CASCF in May and the frequent meetings between China and Arab governments over the past few months, so it’s likely that Beijing has a quiet stamp of approval from these governments, most of which are no doubt happy to see another major power get some skin in the game.

The US is a different matter though. So much of China’s messaging on foreign policy and the focus of its big three global initiatives (GSI, GDI, GCI) is meant to position Chinese preferences for global governenance as an alternative to the US-led order. This engagement on the issue of Palestine has to be seen in this light. So late last week I called some people I know in Washington to get their takes.

First I spoke with Jonathan Panikoff, who is director of the Scowcroft Middle East Security Initiative at the Atlantic Council, where I’m a senior nonresident fellow. Prior to joining the Council, Jonathan spent five years as as the deputy national intelligence officer for the Near East at the National Intelligence Council; conversations with him are a master class on Middle East domestic and regional politics.

I started by asking why he thinks China was included in this - do the Palestinians see Beijing as a credible actor in this? “My sense is the Palestinians view is they’ll take help from wherever they can get it. They've spent so many years frustrated and believing nobody sufficiently cared about their issues anymore and so yes, they view China as credible but also view this as an opportunity.“

When I asked about the likelihood of China bridging the gap between the 14 groups that were represented in the Beijing talks, he responded,

“Maybe China will manage to really create a reconciliation between the Palestinians…but it's hard for me to see how that happens in a meaningful way. And when I say the Palestinians, I'm talking broadly. The PA’s desires and mandates are very different than that of civil society or Hamas or some of the smaller, more militant groups and terrorist organizations... the Palestinians are far from monolithic as a group.

Do I think China's effort here is going to impede what would've been otherwise a real effort at reconciliation? No, I don't, I don't think it'll be helpful. I don't think it'll particularly undermine it. I think the bigger danger is be that if you have a combustible situation in the West Bank, in Gaza, etc., China's going to face two problems. One is, there'll be an expectation of someone on the ground who says, “Okay, China you wanted to be involved so help us fix this.” And if it turns out China’s an empty suit and can’t or won’t help them fix the issue, whatever it is, then I imagine there's going be a credibility issue for the Chinese. As a result, the Palestinians are going do what a lot of the Arab states have done in the last 10 months and say, ‘Okay, China, you made all these big claims, now where are you? You haven't been here. And we're really annoyed.’

The other kind of direction this could go is I think the Palestinians in particular, because they're so divided, you are going to probably see over the next six months an effort by some of them to use real or exaggerated claims of authority and speaking for various Palestinian factions.

So if China doesn't know who is actually legitimate, who's speaking for who — and you’re talking about dozens of different factions — it creates a real potential challenge. The U.S. has a hard time keeping up with all the intra-Palestinian divisions. China has never been involved so I’d be shocked if they wouldn’t struggle immensely. And if they antagonize the wrong person, they could have a real issue, because you then end up antagonizing and supporting one person or faction at the expense of another.”

He included a bit of caution: “There's no part-of-the-way-in with this.”

My next call was with Jon Alterman, who is Senior Vice President, Zbigniew Brzezinski Chair in Global Security and Geostrategy, and Director, Middle East Program at Center for Strategic & International Studies. I started by asking him what he thought China wants to achieve with this. “I think they're saying ‘`We're big league diplomats’.” But then he immediately brought up the gap between perceptions and actions we’ve seen from Chinese diplomacy in the region since October 7th:

If you look at the aftermath of October 7th, the United States has been central to all the regional diplomacy. China has been totally marginal. China's done absolutely nothing useful on the regional security issues that affect China's direct interest. China's done absolutely nothing that genuinely helps Egypt, which not only has a comprehensive strategic partnership, but increasing Chinese investment. Suez Canal tolls were down 57.2% in the first quarter, and the Chinese aren't doing much to help Egypt at all. I think that certainly China deserves credit for having brokered a deal the Russians were hoping to broker and couldn't get about a month or so prior.

He then addressed the ‘now what’ issue: “This is the first step in a very long journey. If it's going to be consequential at all, it's going to have to involve the Israelis. It's going to have to involve other Arab states. China's flexing a diplomatic muscle, but it's early to declare victory.”

I asked him about the challenges inherent in wading into Palestinian politics.

First, there is no trust and there's not going to be trust. There'll be an agreement for cohabitation of some kind, but the fact is that that Hamas and the PLO have a long history of hating each other. There is no sense of win-win solutions between Hamas and the PLO. This is all zero sum, and this is each side looking for some sort of interregnum where they're going to continue to fight. Now, I think a lot of this comes down to exactly what you pointed out: when things start to get tense, where is Beijing? And the answer in all the other issues where Beijing has brokered a deal is Beijing is nowhere when this actual dispute resolution going on. They're there when each side feels a tactical advantage to come together, but the nature of groups coming together is that then there are tensions and then you have to mediate. And that's just not where their interests are. It's not where their core competencies are.

They're often good where the two sides have largely intended to make some kind of agreement and they can go and seal the agreement, when there's an open door. But, the task now with Palestine is you have to unlock a whole bunch of locked doors. And it's not just on the Palestinian side, it's on the Israeli side, it's on the Arab side, it's on the Western governments side. And this is a very nice but very preliminary early step, which only gets you a limited amount. Useful, but not in isolation, especially consequential.

The last question was about how China’s involvement affects the issue from a US perspective:

I think that to me, the important thing to think about is what kind of diplomacy are you going have down the line in a year or two? What kind of role will the Chinese want to play? What kind of role do you want the Chinese to play, and how's that going to affect your ability to accomplish the outcome you want? Now that's especially hard to think through because I have absolutely no idea where American and and Israeli politics are going be in a year.

And, you know, to me that diminishes US diplomatic leverage in the near term because of profound uncertainty about where the US is going to be after November. I have a hard time seeing the twists and turns of Israeli politics. Does Netanyahu's reluctance to make an agreement push him from office? Or does Netanyahu's role as the principal obstacle to the world imposing a two-state solution on an Israeli public that is overwhelmingly opposed to a two-state solution? I mean, I could see that too, and I could see the sort of Western fixation on two-state solution being Netanyahu's political salvation, because it remains an issue where 80% of Israeli Jews are hostile to it. So I don't know.

But you have to do things now with a thought toward what tools do you want to have in six months and a year from now? I do think it's going to take quite some time to get a diplomatic process going. And I think that the Chinese are patiently waiting for that moment and positioning themselves for that moment, what they will do at that moment, whether there is going to be a different kind of Chinese diplomacy, how this fits into to GSI and other Chinese strategies for both immediately advancing China's interests, but also in terms of building China's global reputation and a world that is more consonant with Chinese wishes.

My last call was with Yun Sun, who is a Senior Fellow and Co-Director of the East Asia Program and Director of the China Program at the Stimson Center. When I started by asking her how people in Washington were responding to the China-Palestine story, she started with a healthy reminder of the number of balls in the air last week:

Well, first off, I don't think a lot of people are paying attention to this because Nethanyahu is here. All the attention is on that. On top of that, remember everyone is more focused on the domestic election rather than what China is running around doing. I would say if you have to compare the news of the Chinese strategic bombers joining the patrol with Russians in the Bering Strait, that has had much more media publicity and also US government and military attention compared to this. The new cycle is spread out a little bit. The Ukrainian foreign minister is in China this week too, and this is first trip to China since the beginning of the Ukraine war. He is spending four days in Guangzhou. So if you think about the mediation effort, I would say that this is something the Chinese have been planning on for much longer time, and is of a much higher political and symbolic significance. If you look at the China events, there are at least the four in the picture. There's a strategic joint patrol. There is the the Ukrainian foreign minister, there's the Third Plenum that just wrapped up last week, and then there's this. If you ask people in Washington “what is the most important one for you?” I'm fairly sure the Palestine question is not on the top of the list.

I asked about the significance of the announcement.

I would say the Chinese put a lot of effort in this, and they certainly tried to make a big deal out of what was agreed upon. But I do agree that if you look at the substance is not as exciting as Beijing would like for people to believe. It's about the implementation, right? In spirit, everyone loves peace and stability, but everyone thinks the other side should do more, and my side did nothing wrong. So I still think that this implementation is going to be the challenge, which is not the question here.

I brought up the issue of implementation; will China be able to mediate between Palestinian rivals when things heat up?

I don't know if that is a correct expectation. I think that's what was said when there was the Saudi-Iran deal: “Well, yeah, we'll see. Next time that they get into trouble, China will have to carry a certain role.” I don't think that's how the Chinese see it. They will definitely do things, they will definitely try to massage, but not because they feel they're obligated to. Having facilitated the deal does not necessarily make China a a liable party. I think the Chinese will take the glory, but not necessarily the responsibility. Our view that “oh wow, now China is liable for the future of the peace” - I think that's just a illusion on our part.

While I get the comparison between the Saudi-Iran rapprochement and the Palestinian diplomacy, I think they are two very different issues. China has deep interests in the Gulf and long-standing diplomatic relations with Iran and Saudi Arabia, so it makes more sense to get involved here than Israel-Palestine, where Beijing has a much more modest footprint. Yun’s reply:

 I think that the need assessment is different. The Chinese said there are two issues in the Middle East in terms of peace and stability. There are only two, and they're the source of our problems. And one is the relationship between Iran and the GCC, and the other one is Israel-Palestine. So in my view, especially, since 2018 when they started talking about this new security architecture of the Middle East, those have been the two issues that they have been working on. You remember that when Qin Gang became the foreign minister, he called the Israeli foreign Minister, and then he called the Palestinians. Why would he, that's not something that Wang Yi did when he first became the foreign minister, right?

So I do believe that there has been this emphasis in the Chinese foreign policy apparatus that the issue of Palestine is on the map, and that was independent from what happened in Gaza since last October.

Lots of useful insights from three very sharp and thoughtful analysts of regional affairs. More conversations to come - I hope to have similar conversations with Arab and Israeli thinkers as well, but I’m down to my last 4 days of vacation in Canada and will likely not have time for posting until I’m back in the Emirates.