DEMONSTRATIONS, debates and meetings on Gaza are generally of good quality.

Organisations and media outlets courageously go against the tide. It is therefore disappointing that in the campaign there is a deafening silence about China and its principles, proposals and actions.

For example, in debates in Belgium this summer, there was only a very brief mention of Beijing’s diplomatic tour de force uniting the 14 largest Palestinian resistance organisations around a declaration and programme of internal reconciliation. If nobody in the audience had asked about the Beijing Declaration, the panellists themselves would not have mentioned it.

One can legitimately ask why a leftist and progressive community remains silent on China or refuses to show solidarity with a country that is the target of a multifaceted Western offensive, even if that community is well aware of the risk that the current Nato onslaught turns into an unprecedented global conflict.

Neither Washington nor Beijing?

Here and there we hear “China is only interfering in the region to gain influence or out of rivalry with the US.” The caricature of a self-interested, neo-imperialist China is among the many fables that the US and the EU successfully spread through their powerful media; myths that all too often carry an undertone of sinophobia. The attitude “neither Washington nor Beijing” may look good to some, but it ends up in a de facto support for the advancing Nato offensive. 

What is China actually doing?

Another and more innocuous reason why China is often left out of the picture when it comes to Palestine is that many do not think, or rather know, that China is sincerely and usefully working for the cause of the Palestinians in many ways. 

For example, it is important that China has so far never condemned Hamas’s actions. This gives others in the global South the necessary courage and strength to stand up to the US and the EU (as with the anti-Russian sanctions). Another strong signal is China treating Hamas as a serious and important interlocutor. In recent months there have been several contacts between representatives of that resistance movement and Chinese diplomats. Neither the US nor Israel could appreciate this. 

Beijing seldom or never sides with one of the warring parties in conflicts in the global South. This is in stark contrast to a tried-and-tested tactic of the West. China’s negotiated peace and reconciliation line is applied by Beijing to internal conflicts in Third World countries, eg Palestine. And neither does China provide arbitrary and facile criticism of Fatah and the Palestinian Authority, which are still recognised by most countries as official representatives of the Palestinian state.

Beijing’s respect

Chinese diplomacy speaks out in favour of the two-state solution, as do some officially recognised Palestinian organisations. Might that be the reason for ignoring or rejecting Beijing’s actions?

What most Palestinians themselves think of certain leaders and of the two-state solution favoured by them does indeed remain an open question. Perhaps views will depend on the concrete and very different situations in which Palestinian refugees or Palestinians living in Israel, Gaza or the West Bank find themselves.

Opinions fluctuate, all we know with certainty is that this is a tough debate and that we should at least listen to all Palestinians themselves, without giving some groups either all the credit or all the criticism. Important Palestinian stakeholders are full of praise for China as they have found that it adheres to the principle that “on Palestinian matters, ultimately, it is for the Palestinians to decide.”

The power of unity

Beijing has been making efforts to unite Palestinian groups for months. True, it is “yet another attempt,” but it looks like it will be one of the most successful and so say those who signed the declaration themselves. Foreign minister Wang Yi made the following remarks about it: “Only when Palestinian factions speak with one voice can that voice of justice be heard loud and clear, and only when they join hands and march forward shoulder to shoulder can they succeed in their national liberation cause, with the ultimate goal of the genuine establishment of an independent state of Palestine in accordance with the relevant UN resolutions.”

Another gratifying and positive result of the Beijing Declaration is that Fatah and the Palestinian Authority have now been offered an escape route from being hostages of the US and Israel. Tel Aviv is furious about this, with good reason. 

Recognising the Palestinian state

We rejoice that Norway, Ireland and Spain, partly in response to the horror in Gaza, now recognise the Palestinian state. But China was one of the first countries to do so, as early as November 20 1988. That too is neither mentioned in the corporate media, nor perceived by a lot of Western activists. Several times China has spoken out clearly for the Palestinian cause at the UN security council. It convened a special council meeting on the Gaza genocide and dedicated a press conference to it at its own National People’s Congress. This has not escaped The Palestine Chronicle‘s notice, unlike our mainstream media’s.

Right to resist (and in what way)

When activists speak approvingly of the right to armed resistance where necessary, why would it be that they do not mention Ma Xinmin, legal adviser to the Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs, supporting that right in an official statement (see the verbatim report of the court) at the public hearing of the International Court of Justice in The Hague? 

Action groups, resistance movements and states struggle in various ways. The United States had been building a “New Middle East without Palestine.” They wanted Israel to further its ties with Arab and Muslim countries (the “Abraham Accords”) to deprive the struggle for a Palestinian state of any relevance.

A typical stand of Chinese diplomacy is this: “On the road to reconciliation, China follows the same direction and destination as Arab and Muslim countries.” That resulted in a joint statement on Gaza between China and those countries on May 31.

China is slowly and diplomatically weaning the countries in the region from US and EU influence, for instance by striving for peace and working for rapprochement between Saudi Arabia and Iran. The October 7 raid’s consequence was to thwart the US plans by force. What China is doing points in the same direction, but necessarily by means of peaceful diplomacy.

From despair to defiance?

Could China do more? Perhaps, but everyone knows how much and in what various ways China is being targeted and threatened at the moment, and it could be watching its step. However, practice shows that Chinese diplomacy is highly effective, and people would be well advised not to be influenced in any way by sinophobic condescension.

Pro-Palestine activists and other well-meaning Westerners are understandably desperate for progress. However, those who show no interest in China’s responses and who reject the solidarity of China’s diplomats are letting the US and EU elites deprive them of an important ally and – something not to be underestimated – will be more vulnerable to the propaganda designed to normalise the next round of horrendous wars driven by Washington, London and Nato, wars that seem to be inescapably coming our way in the Pacific region.

This article, written for ChinaSquare, and translated for Friends of Socialist China, has been shortened by the author for the Morning Star.