China Says It's 'Cooling Down the Situation' in Gaza with Mideast Diplomacy

China has stepped up its Middle East diplomacy amid stalled efforts among regional countries and the United States to reach a ceasefire in the ongoing war between Israel and the Palestinian Hamas movement in the Gaza Strip.

And Beijing believes its efforts are gaining traction among key players, especially after diplomat Wang Kejian recently traveled to Egypt, the West Bank, Israel and Qatar for meetings with officials, including the head of Hamas' Political Bureau, Ismail Haniyeh.

"Relevant parties widely appreciated China's just position and active efforts to achieve a ceasefire, ease the humanitarian situation, and avoid the further spillover of the conflict," Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Lin Jian told reporters on Wednesday.

"They look to China playing a greater role in deescalating the conflict," he added, "and cooling down the situation."

The People's Republic has invested heavily in Middle East engagement in recent years, an effort highlighted by the China-brokered deal that restored a years-long rift in relations between rivals Iran and Saudi Arabia one year ago. The efforts are part of a broader focus on diplomacy established during the latest Chinese Communist Party National Congress in October 2022 as a leading priority by President Xi Jinping, whose government oversees the world's largest diplomatic network.

And while the crucial success in bringing Riyadh and Tehran together served a major boost to Beijing's diplomacy in the region, tackling the Israeli-Palestinian conflict may be the toughest challenge yet.

Just over a month after Hamas led a surprise attack on Israel on October 7, 2023, sparking a major Israel Defense Forces (IDF) campaign in Gaza that has since become the deadliest flare-up of Israeli-Palestinian violence to date, China convened a meeting of Arab and Muslim-majority nations in Beijing in an effort to discuss the issue.

Following the talks, Xi outlined a five-point proposal for resolving the decades-long Israeli-Palestinian conflict. The plan included measures toward "implementing a comprehensive ceasefire and ending the fighting," "protecting civilians effectively," "ensuring humanitarian assistance," "enhancing diplomatic mediation" and "seeking political settlement."

Nearly six months into the conflict, however, all five issues remain unresolved, even as U.S.-backed ceasefire talks mediated by Egypt and Qatar continue.

"Similar to major countries in and out of the region, China's diplomatic approach in the Palestinian-Israeli conflict is facing a complicated situation," Shen Shiwei, a Chinese analyst and journalist, told Newsweek. "It's never an easy job to push de-escalation of the decades long Palestinian-Israeli conflicts, especially the on-going deadly conflicts in Gaza."

He argued, however, that "compared with U.S. and EU's one-sided support to Israel in the conflicts, not very supportive policies to Palestinian authority and hostile policies towards Hamas, China is one of the few major countries that can have talks with Israel, the Palestinian Authority and Hamas at the same time."

Pointing to Wang's recent trips, Shen argued stated that, "shuttle diplomacy is a very effective way of better understanding the demands of parties in the conflicts, including what goals they hope to achieve, to what extent and what conditions they are willing to accept."

"After all," he added, "if you don't understand the positions and demands of all parties, it's very easy to see a collapse during the negotiation, if relevant parties agreed to sit for a negotiation."

Lin too said Beijing has remained actively engaged on the sidelines of the conflict and in direct efforts to mitigate the worsening humanitarian crisis that has emerged in Gaza.

"Since the outbreak of the conflict in Gaza, we have maintained close communication and coordination with the Arab countries, built broad-based consensus with relevant parties in the international community, and promoted the comprehensive ceasefire with the greatest sense of urgency," Lin said.

"We have closely followed the humanitarian situation in Gaza and have already provided multiple batches of emergency humanitarian assistance to Gaza through bilateral and multilateral channels. China has actively encouraged all factions in Palestine to achieve internal reconciliation through dialogue and firmly supported 'the Palestinians governing Palestine.'"

China has also pushed for full United Nations recognition of the State of Palestine, which was granted non-member U.N. observer status in 2012. This effort is opposed by Israel and the U.S., which argue that the question of Palestinian sovereignty was subject to a political solution on the ground.

Israel and the U.S. have also opposed repeated U.N. calls for a ceasefire pending a breakthrough in negotiations that would include the release of hostages held in Gaza.

Washington has used its veto power four times to strike down U.N. Security Council resolutions demanding a ceasefire since the conflict erupted, while Beijing has backed the initiatives and went on to argue that Palestinian "armed struggle" was a legitimate expression of self-determination at the International Court of Justice (ICJ) last month.

In talks with Wang on Sunday, Haniyeh "praised the role played by China in the Security Council, the United Nations and the International Court of Justice, as well as sending humanitarian aid to the Gaza Strip," according to Hamas' media office. The Chinese envoy, for his part, was said to have reiterated Beijing's positions on the need to end the war, as well as the historic ties between China and Palestinians.

China was an enthusiastic supporter of left-wing Palestinian nationalist movements throughout the era of People's Republic founder Mao Zedong, even going so far as to compare Israel to Taiwan. The aid was tempered under his successor, Deng Xiaoping, in the late 1970s as Beijing sought to support a peace process and, in 1992, China established diplomatic relations with Israel.

Since then, China has forged closer ties with Israel, proclaiming an "innovative comprehensive partnership" between the two countries in 2017.

China is also one of Israel's top trading partners, as is the case with many countries in the region and beyond. And while Israel appears to be the only country in the Middle East to not have officially signed up to Xi's Belt and Road Initiative of global infrastructure development projects, the two countries have collaborated within the framework of the intercontinental initiative, including in agriculture, port and rail infrastructure, energy and technology.

The relationship has been tested, however, by the U.S.-China rivalry and Beijing's amplification of concerns over civilian casualties in the IDF's ongoing campaign in Gaza. In response to the Chinese legal position issued during ICJ deliberations on the conflict last month, the Israeli Foreign Ministry expressed rare public criticism of Beijing.

"At the present time, the Chinese statement could be interpreted as support for the murderous terrorist attack committed by Hamas on October 7th," the ministry said. "China should ask itself why the Hamas terrorist organization was so quick to praise the words of the Chinese legal advisor at the ICJ."

And yet Chinese and Israeli officials have continued to engage with one another, with both sides emphasizing the importance of their relationship during Wang's meeting last week with Israeli Foreign Ministry Asia and Pacific Bureau Director Hagai Shagrir and the head of its Policy Research Center, Rachel Feinmesser, according to the Chinese Foreign Ministry's readout.

With international pressure building on Israel over the increasing civilian death toll in Gaza, accentuated by plans for an IDF offensive in southern Rafah that even the U.S. has openly opposed, Lin affirmed Wednesday that "China will continue to work with the international community to restore peace, save lives, and uphold justice."

Update 3/21/24, 11:00 a.m. ET: This article has been updated to include comments from Chinese analyst and journalist Shen Shiwei.