China wants to broke peace between Israel and Iran – is it going?

Can China broke peace between Iran and Israel? In recent days, the country has stepped forward and presented itself as a possible mediator.

Last weekend, China’s Foreign Minister Wang Yi called his colleagues in Iran and Israel and offered to play a « constructive » role in calming down what increasingly looks like develop into a major war.

China has for a long time worked hard to increase its influence in the Middle East – financially and diplomatically. For example, it was in Beijing that Saudi Arabia and Iran buried the battle axes.

Now Beijing is trying to emerge as a voice for peace, as a kind of alternative to the United States. The question is whether the parties are willing to listen to China. There is a great deal of uncertainty here, especially in Israel. China has long been on the Palestinians’ side, and it has not changed after Hama’s terrorist attacks on October 7, 2023. It reduces the country’s credibility in Israeli eyes.

And despite the fact that, as always, trying to appear as a neutral player in the escalated conflict between Iran and Israel, this time, Israel’s initial attack has been condemned in a completely different way than when Russia invaded Ukraine.

« China explicitly condemns that Israel violates Iran’s sovereignty, security and territorial integrity, » Wang Yi said.

What gives China a certain weight is its financial involvement in the Middle East. China is an extremely important trading party for Iran, but also Israel’s second largest trading partner. It is to China that 90 percent of Iran’s oil exports go. In addition, China and Iran wrote under one Strategic partnership 2021which, among other things, makes Iran a part of China’s large infrastructure investment, the new silk road.

For China, Iran, along with Russia and North Korea, is a Strategic partner In the fight against US influence in the Middle East and the rest of the world.

But so far, according to most analysts, China has far from the influence in the Middle East that the United States has. And the country will probably proceed carefully so as not to irritate the United States too much and impair the already bad relationship further.

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