Newsgroup: it.politica.internazionale
Titolo: e, a parte il gelato

La visita di Bibi segna un altro grosso punto a favore di Israele. Il
miglioramento delle relazioni con la Cina
 
http://www.tabletmag.com/scroll/132220/why-netanyahu-and-abbas-went-to-china
 
 
This past week, Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas and Israeli Prime
Minister Benjamin Netanyahu visited China. It was the first time
Beijing ever simultaneously hosted the leaders of the two rival
nations. As China’s new president discussed peace with Abbas, the
media rushed to anoint the joint visits as evidence that China had
come of age in the Middle East. The growing East Asian power, whose
dependence on Arab oil grows higher every year, was depicted as ready
to play a genuine role in the peace process. One influential analyst
suggested that the new Chinese president’s peace initiative to Abbas
was “a momentous shift in China’s foreign policy.”
 
In embracing this narrative, observers swallowed the story Beijing
wanted while completely missing the real reason for Abbas’s visit.
Abbas was not in China to herald a new dawn of Chinese peacemaking.
Beijing invited him for one overriding reason: to provide diplomatic
cover for Netanyahu’s far more strategic meeting with China’s new
leaders.
 
By showering attention on the Palestinian leader and giving lip
service to the peace process, China was able to placate the concern of
traditional Arab allies that the first head of state from the Middle
East to visit the new Chinese leadership, which took office in March,
would be from Israel. Savvy maneuvering by Chinese officials allowed
Beijing to burnish its credibility in the Arab world through an act
that ironically was mostly intended as a fig leaf for China’s
strategic dialogues with Israel. In addition to deflecting attention
from the Arab world, China likely also sought to sidestep American
concerns over the deepening security ties between China and Israel,
eager to avoid the sort of breakdown in Sino-Israeli ties that took
place due to American pressure a decade earlier.
 
Whether Arab or American audiences were the main target of Beijing’s
diplomatic charade, the extent to which the Abbas visit was a
smokescreen was evident when the two Middle Eastern leaders failed to
meet in Beijing. China’s leaders did not even mention Abbas’s visit
when they welcomed Netanyahu to Beijing twenty-four hours after the
Palestinian leader had departed China. Unlike Abbas, who visited China
with few retainers and had little to show for his time overseas save
hollow declarations about the peace process, Netanyahu was accompanied
by dozens of top businessmen and government officials on a visit that
the Chinese ambassador to Israel described as likely to “determine the
direction the relationship will take in the coming years, elevating
ties to a new level.”
 
Indeed, Netanyahu’s visit is the culmination of a series of bilateral
military dialogues over the last two years, with China’s top general
having visited Israel in August 2011 and his Israeli peer returning
the favor on a visit to Beijing in May 2012. The growing military ties
since 2011 have developed alongside a dramatic rise in bilateral trade
and investment. China appreciates Israel’s hi-tech sector and relative
stability during the Arab Spring while Israel has come to understand
that Beijing possesses a rare degree of influence with Israel’s foes
in Damascus and Tehran, not to mention a giant market for the Israeli
economy. Last week’s trip makes China the very first country Netanyahu
has visited since winning reelection in January (with the exception of
Margaret Thatcher’s funeral in April). Indeed, the visit was deemed so
strategically significant that Israel’s Foreign Ministry allowed the
trip to take place despite being mired in a contentious labor dispute
that has suspended all other diplomatic activity.
 
China’s determination to juggle warm relations with all sides in the
Middle East meant Beijing could not risk slighting its Arab allies—
especially given Arab anger over China’s continued support of the
Assad regime in Syria—by granting Netanyahu the honor of visiting
Beijing before an Arab head of state. As such, they invited Abbas.
This not only accorded respect to the Palestinians but also changed
the media’s coverage of Netanyahu’s strategic visit. Instead of
lauding growing Sino-Israeli ties, the media, especially in the Arab
world, followed Beijing’s lead and celebrated China’s support of the
peace process. To sell this narrative, the Chinese media made sure to
underline that Abbas was on a ‘state visit’ in contrast to Netanyahu’s
mere ‘official visit.’ Far less attention was devoted to the fact
Abbas was invited only six days before Netanyahu arrived in China,
with Beijing covering the cost of the Palestinian leader’s brief visit
to make it happen. Abbas dutifully played his part, stating in an
interview (that was widely circulated in the Arab world) that
Netanyahu’s visit would in fact be beneficial to the Palestinians.
 
The lesson of last week’s overlapping visits to China is not about
Beijing’s emergence as a Middle East peacemaker. No one seriously
believes that China is prepared to become an active participant in the
peace process. As several observers pointed out, the peace proposal
China’s president delivered to Abbas was merely a reiteration of
generic slogans Chinese diplomats have been repeating for decades.
While the media was right to note that China’s profile in the region
is growing, they missed the real story of China’s rising profile—the
deepening strategic synergy between Beijing and Jerusalem—by
swallowing a bit of political theatre China organized with the help of
Abbas. Aside from highlighting Beijing’s artful diplomacy, last week’s
visits underlined China’s readiness to expand ties with Israel, albeit
cautiously and without attracting the sort of unwanted attention that
would undermine relations between the two counties.

 miglioramento delle relazioni con la Cina
 
Beh, i punti di contatto ci sono.
-- 
Namib
.....
αἱ ψυχαὶ ὀσμῶνται καθ᾽ Ἅιδην (Eraclito)

 Beh, i punti di contatto ci sono.
 
agnosco stylum :D