China’s choices on Gaza and Ukraine

The view from China is important as the tensions around it make up the fundamental backdrop within which both the Gaza and Ukraine conflicts are playing out.

In November in San Francisco, with the meeting between US and Chinese presidents Joe Biden and Xi Jinping, a kind of truce or cease-fire was agreed between the two sides’ tensions.

On one hand, this assures the US that a third front will not open up at least anytime soon. To China, on the other hand, it allows a moment of pause as elections in Taiwan loom in January.

If the self-governing island declares formal independence and pushes against Beijing, the issue would become unsettling for Beijing. In addition, the Chinese economy is in serious trouble. China needs time and energy to get back on track.

The truce is good for both, but it is only a truce. We’ll have to see in the next few months, over a period of four to 14 months, whether this will provide room for something more substantial. Right now, though, it doesn’t.

And so, looking backward, the horizons are apparent. Of course, there is the Gaza conflict. Here it seems that Israel basically says that by March it will have taken over and eliminated the armed wing of Hamas.

That is a wish and a hope because not only is Hamas Israel’s enemy but a coalition of enemies has formed against Hamas. Many Arab countries do not want their policies hijacked by Hamas after being hijacked previously by ISIS, al-Qaeda, and the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO). 

And there is Europe, which, beyond the protests in the pro-Palestinian squares, fears the risk of a wave of Islamic terrorism sponsored by Hamas itself.

So, beyond the declarations of principle of this or that Middle Eastern government, in reality, there is a very broad consensus against Hamas. There is, however, beyond that, a growing suspicion of Israel. 

It is a basic problem that Israel has not made much progress in solving the Palestinian issue since the 1993 Oslo agreement with the PLO. The Palestinian issue was put aside because it seemed unsolvable. And so, if unsolvable, it was no longer an issue. 

It was a position, while understandable, that has exploded in recent months. The Palestinian issue still has to be resolved one way or another because millions of people need a credible idea of a future that is not just the alternative between staying in a closed space or surrendering to Hamas terrorists.

Israel has to think about another perspective. Now perhaps it is emerging. It has opened up the idea of the Cotton Road: a political-commercial communication corridor that goes from India through Saudi Arabia, then Jordan and Israel, and then to Europe.

Israel has to find a way to integrate more and better with the rest of the Middle East. Israel has to stop being a kind of European outpost in the Middle East. It has to be a bridge to Europe and the West in the Middle East. It has to be a space of growth for Israel itself, for the Middle East, and for the West.

This means changing its relations with friendly but also unfriendly countries. The sort of armed peace that has been held for years with Syria or with Iran needs a stabler solution not only from Israel but perhaps also with the participation of other countries in the region.

The eventual end of the Gaza conflict will refocus world attention on the conflict in Ukraine, which is now in a tough spot. Russia is struggling. Ukraine is struggling. 

It is to be seen whether, in three to four months, as spring arrives, there will be glimmers of a true truce between the two sides or a victory by either side. For now, a collapse of the total Ukrainian front within these three to four months seems unlikely, although in theory, it is possible.

After the Gaza war ends there will be more world attention and more world commitment to resolving the Ukrainian issue because the war in Ukraine cannot be allowed to worsen year after year. It is a loose cannon kindling other conflicts if it doesn’t end soon. A resolution is in everybody’s interest.

Here, just as Hamas’ solution in Gaza opens unfinished business with Syria or Iran, an eventual end of any kind to the war in Ukraine opens the question of Russian President Vladimir Putin.

Kiev’s critics argue that the end of hostilities in Ukraine will create some kind of a political black hole, a country in total disarray. Therefore, Kiev and its backers will have lost the war.

The real point, however, is that two years ago Ukraine hardly existed politically. It had no army, almost no soldiers, no tanks, artillery or air force. Will it be defeated on the ground today? Maybe yes, maybe no. 

But that after two years the Russian superpower cannot break through in a traditional war – not Afghan guerrilla-style warfare – and has had to resort to help from China, Iran and North Korea is an unparalleled failure.

It is possible that, whatever the outcome on the battlefield, many political balances in Moscow could blow up when the guns have stopped firing. Now it looks like Russia is getting the upper hand but that coincides with the Western distraction over Gaza.

Is Hamas saving Putin? These are guerrilla tactics (or fortunes), asymmetrical warfare stuff, not demonstrations of traditional power.

One could go on and on counting the thousand holes in Russia’s troubles. There is concern that Russia will collapse, as happened with the tsars’ or Soviet regimes, which would create a huge geopolitical vacuum. If Ukraine alone collapsed, it would be more manageable. 

However, such has been Russian fatigue that even a Ukrainian collapse would not safely prevent a Russian collapse or domestic political earthquake. And it is possible Ukraine will not collapse. 

In the 1950s, the US supported a Ukrainian guerrilla war but abandoned it after a couple of years. The Ukrainians went on for a decade against the Soviets without any support.

Today, they have stood their ground and repelled the Russians for two years. It seems unlikely they will surrender tomorrow. Moreover, there is the case of the Prigozhin uprising (the head of the Wagner group who marched on Moscow) in June. 

It does not seem to be an isolated incident but a symptom of deep tremors in Moscow. Kiev is also shaking but many external political forces can hold it together. Moscow has to go it alone. I don’t think Beijing, Tehran or Pyongyang are players in the Kremlin’s plots.

As such, Putin and Moscow will require a lot of imagination to get out of this swamp. As of today, the most likely outcome appears to be a stalemate. But even if both sides accept a stalemate, it may save Russia from implosion but not Putin from an internal showdown.

It is questionable that the Ukrainian issue will be resolved by March. Moreover, even if it were, it would open up political consequences in Moscow. Even the theoretical possibility of it happening is destabilizing. 

That is, Putin has no interest in ending the war. A “victory” of his own to sell convincingly to his acolytes is very difficult if not impossible. For his survival, Putin needs the continuation, even at a low intensity, of the war, which will keep him in power and perhaps consume his internal or external enemies by slow fire. 

Or he needs to cut some kind of a deal with the Americans, something that could leave China more isolated. On the other hand, the end of the conflict in Gaza will open new fronts of at least political attention in Lebanon, Syria and Iran.

That is, there is a prolonged horizon of a piecemeal world war, as the Pope described the present situation, that extends in time and widens in space. 

There is no longer the possibility of a return to the peace of before the war in Ukraine. There will be a low- or high-intensity war that hopefully can be limited in time, space and violence, but with which the whole world, starting with Europe, must understand it must live. 

This means that Europe, and also the US, must wake up from the dream that peace will soon return and must gear up for a protracted conflict that hopefully can be contained. Unless a dramatic change for the better takes place soon.

This underscores how critical the upcoming US elections are. It’s unclear who will be the new president, whether Biden will be re-elected or Donald Trump will return, or if there will be a third candidate who will prevail over both.

In a state of enormous uncertainty, perhaps unprecedented in the US with deep rifts in American society, politics, and culture, these elections could be vital.

It is all taking place without space for international settlement. The UN can no longer be a real place of mediation. This is probably because at the end of the Cold War, when it was still an instrument designed for the Cold War, the UN should have been transformed. But it has not been, with specifically no reform of the permanent Security Council.

Today, the organization is hostage to numbers, to smaller or developing countries that sometimes sell out to this or that interlocutor for pennies. There is thus a problem with the UN’s true representation: It certainly does not represent advanced countries, nor does it represent developing countries, and is overall an empty institution.

Finally, there is antisemitism, an issue that directly affects Christians and Muslims, the majority of the planet’s population. For decades, it was taken for granted that the antisemitic/anti-Jewish issue had been settled and few had doubts about it. The horror of the Shoah was supposed to be enough to vaccinate everyone against future anti-Jewish regurgitations.

The recent protests, which do not tell apart the massacres of Hamas and the more or less questionable policies of Israel, bring to light the infernal seed of antisemitism.

Those concerned about antisemitism must address the problem and not simply in defense of Israel or defense of Judaism, but in the name of tolerance and liberal society. Because if you kill and cripple freedom in democratic societies, it brings back antisemitism and then other intolerances come in its wake.

It is a battle of liberal culture against the regurgitations of authoritarianism and tyranny coming from so many parts of the world.

In other words, China has a horizon of four to 14 months, from the end of the Gaza war to the inauguration of the new US president, to figure out how it will play its hand and what it will do in the future. 

China’s position, in turn, will affect the war in Ukraine and the Middle East as well as new tensions that could soon emerge in other parts of the world.

This essay first appeared on Settimana News and is republished with permission. The original article can be read here.