Peace could be restored in the Middle East only through the resolution of the Palestine dispute, but, in recent years the question has not been high on the foreign policy agendas of either China or India. Not any longer. After Prime Minister Narendra Modi's visit to Israel earlier this month on what is described as a path-breaking journey President Mahmoud Abbas was in Beijing this week and received the promise of China's "unremitting" efforts for Middle East peace based on a two-state solution. However, India and China have come to this point long after having had wavering positions on the Palestine problem. China was an unrelenting supporter of Palestine ever since the Communist Party came to power in 1949, on both political and military levels. Yasser Arafat was a frequent visitor to Chairman Mao. But Deng Xiaoping reduced support for Palestine and backed the Camp David Accords. President Xi Jinping reasserted support for "the establishment of a Palestine state with its capital in East Jerusalem" - the Palestinians' longstanding demand - at a meeting of the Arab League last year. India has played a waiting game, trying to please both Arabs and Israel, even though India's founding father Mahatma Gandhi had famously declared back in the 1930s: "Palestine belongs to Arabs as England belongs to the English and France to the French." Then in 1990s, India accorded full recognition to Israel. The two states have come closer still after Prime Minister Modi's visit to Israel. He was received at the airport by Netanyahu and his entire cabinet, and then the two prime ministers took a walk on the Tel Aviv beach to put on view the "strong personal chemistry" between them. And unlike in the past when Indian leaders visiting Israel would also visit Ramallah, Modi not only omitted any mention of a two-state solution but refrained from meeting any Palestinian official. President Xi has promised to renew efforts to restart Israeli-Palestinian talks. Speaking to reporters after his meeting with president Mahmoud Abbas, President Xi said the people of Palestine are "partner and brother," and that "China hopes Palestine and Israel can achieve peace as soon as possible ... (and) China will make unremitting efforts for this." For these efforts to succeed, he said, it is important to "advance a political settlement on the basis of the two-state solution." President Xi Jinping is reported to have told Mahmoud Abbas that China would like to set up a trilateral mechanism and later this year host a peace symposium to help resolve the dispute. Netanyahu, who was in Beijing in March, would like to see China play a bigger role in the Middle East. This is certainly an encouraging situation. But there is the possibility of a roadblock: given India's negative mindset on China's growing clout in the Middle East it has the potential to derail this process to the relish of anti-China lobbies in the West.
Copyright Business Recorder, 2017
