Washington Report On Middle East Affairs – October 2018

WHILE THE BDS MOVE-

MENT gains ground in much

of the world, occasioning fran-

tic efforts by Israel’s support-

ers to suppress it, some coun-

tries are cheerfully expanding

their trade and business links

with Israel, with no regard for

the fact that they thereby rein-

force Israel in its denial of

Palestinian rights. Notable

among those countries are the

Asian giants India and China,

both of which were supportive

of the Palestinians into the

1980s.

A recent BBC News report

from Tel Aviv highlighted the

growth in Chinese invest-

ments in Israel, as well as

that of Israeli investments in

China.

“In 2016 China’s direct in-

vestment in Israel almost

tripled to $16bn (£12bn),” according to a report in the South China

Morning Post newspaper.

“Meanwhile, the Jerusalem Post predicts that China will over-

take the U.S. as the number one source of overseas investment

in Israel. Over the past two decades the Israeli economy has es-

tablished itself as a leading hub of technological development.

“Commentators say that Chinese firms want to get their hands

on that technology, at the same time as Israeli companies want

better access to the giant Chinese marketplace.”

The report notes that there are annual events held to bring to-

gether companies from each state, including Silicon Dragon Israel

and the China-Israel Innovation Summit.

Among Israeli enterprises that have been bought by Chinese

companies is Tnuva, a dairy company that was originally estab-

lished as a cooperative owned by the kibbutzim and moshavim—

agricultural settlements that played a major colonizing role as part

of the Zionist labor movement in Palestine under the British Man-

date. Tnuva was taken over by Bright Foods, a Chinese state-

owned company, in 2014, a few years after the cooperative had

become a limited company. Tnuva supplies 70 percent of Israel’s

dairy products.

In acquiring interests in foreign companies, Chinese firms have

sometimes gained access to technologies that they were able to

use in their own products. One concern that the BBC article men-

tioned was that Israeli technology with military applications could

eventually end up being used to produce weaponry and equip-

ment for the Chinese military. As is well known, some of this tech-

nology was developed in Israel in cooperation with U.S. firms and

with the benefit, directly or indirectly, of U.S. aid.

No wonder that Lee Branstetter, professor of economics and

public policy at Heinz College, Carnegie Mellon University, sug-

gests that the Pentagon’s worries about the artificial intelligence

capabilities acquired by Chinese firms, and the possibility of China

gaining access to U.S. military technology via Israel that it could

not obtain directly, may place limits on the growth in the Israel-

China relationship. “If an American pilot were ever shot down by

a Chinese missile powered by Israeli technology, it would be a real

Chinese Premier Li Keqiang (l) and Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu view an honor guard during

a welcoming ceremony inside Beijing’s Great Hall of the People, March 20, 2017.

LINTAO ZHANGI/GETTY IMAGES

John Gee is a free-lance journalist based in Singapore, and the

author of Unequal Conflict: The Palestinians and Israel.

OCTOBER2018 WASHINGTON REPORT ON MIDDLE EAST AFFAIRS 55

Deepening Ties Between China and Israel

By John Gee

Islam and the Near East in the Far East

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