The ceasefire in the Middle East is a rare cause for celebration in that war-torn region. Hamas has released all of the living hostages it captured on Oct. 7, 2023, regular combat operations have ceased, and Israel has drawn closer to its Arab neighbors. Israel, with crucial support from the United States, has achieved all of this despite concerted efforts from the forces of darkness to prevent it.
Hamas, of course, is a longtime client of Iran, which in turn is a client of China. Two years ago, when Hamas invaded Israel — killing 1,200, kidnapping 251, and brutalizing countless others — it was driven by a genocidal impulse. China, itself guilty of carrying out a genocide in Xinjiang, was quick to take Hamas’s side in the conflict, at least implicitly. Beijing never condemned the Oct. 7 attacks and never called out Hamas by name. It called for all parties to cease fighting because it wanted Hamas to survive. It turned to antisemitic and pro-Palestinian messaging in an attempt to weaken the Abraham accords and to cleave America’s Arab allies away from Washington.
It might seem counterintuitive for China to despair of Israeli victory. After all, Beijing well recognizes the instability that terrorism can cause. But that instability is exactly why Beijing took the side of evil in the Middle East. Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) is an agent of disorder, as are his pals in Moscow, Tehran, and Pyongyang. He believes the postwar international order — with norms favoring unhindered economic flows, the peaceful settlement of disputes, and liberal conceptions of freedom of the seas — no longer suit China’s purposes.
China aims to be a regional, if not a global, hegemon. To achieve that end, it believes it must tear down the presiding order. Xi thinks that China can excel, and most effectively dominate, in a world in which might makes right, democracies are under pressure, and mercantilism is the name of the game.
To bring about that world, Beijing acts both directly and indirectly. Its direct efforts are plain to see in its behavior toward Taiwan and in the South China Sea, in its transnational repression, in its economic exploitation of weaker partners, in its efforts to entrench political corruption overseas, in its undersea cable-cutting in Europe, and in its political warfare campaigns in democratic societies. Indirectly, Beijing cozies up to the world’s worst regimes, underwrites wars of aggression in which it has no direct stake, and throws its moral weight (such as it is) behind the likes of Hamas.
In the wake of the Oct. 7 attack, China envisioned a Middle East in which American influence was diluted, Israel was isolated, and Iran could run wild — a state of affairs that would have further undermined the rules and norms from which the world has amply benefited since World War II.
But China failed. In spite of its best efforts to sow discord and to ensure that a regimented band of rapists and murderers would prosper, Beijing achieved none of its aims. Hamas lives but is a shell of its former self. Iran has not only been chastened but defanged. American power and influence are further entrenched in the Middle East and Israel is poised for more normal — if not formal — relations with a host of countries in the Muslim world.
China’s threats to the international system are significant. It is doing real damage. But events of the past two years demonstrate that order can be successfully defended, preserved, and even improved. With the effective application of American and allied power — military force, economic leverage, and diplomatic muscle — the forces of disorder can be defeated.
Michael Mazza is senior director for research at the Institute for Indo-Pacific Security (formerly the Project 2049 Institute) and a senior non-resident fellow at the Global Taiwan Institute.
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