Peacemaker China

AN aggressor as well as a peacemaker this dual role might seem paradoxical, but China is going all out to pull it off. Months after bringing about a rapprochement between Iran and Saudi Arabia, Beijing has offered help to rebuild relations between the Palestinian Authority and the Israeli government. Amid Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas’s China visit, Chinese Foreign Minister Qin Gang has said that Beijing supports the resumption of peace talks between Palestine and Israel as soon as possible on the basis of the two-state solution and is willing to play an active role. This is in line with China’s ambition to become a bigger player in West Asian geopolitics and replace the US as the overseer of the region.

Earlier this year, China had come up with a peace plan aimed at reducing Russia-Ukraine hostilities. This intervention was also directed at the US and its allies, which have been militarising Ukraine with the intention of enfeebling Russia. However, the proposal has not made any headway, prompting Beijing to focus more on oil-rich West Asia. More importantly, China is keen on an image makeover to project itself as a superpower which should be equally feared and respected.

It is China’s growing clout in UNESCO policymaking that has influenced America’s decision to rejoin the UN cultural and scientific agency. The US and Israel had stopped financing UNESCO after it voted to include Palestine as a member state in 2011. Clearly, the US is now prioritising its own interests, even at the risk of offending its time-tested ally, Israel. The growing closeness between the US and India in defence and strategic ties is also being attributed to the Chinese threat. China’s diplomatic outreach and military overreach put the onus on New Delhi to recalibrate its foreign policy and look beyond G20 presidency to seize the initiative in the international arena.