China and Israel: Pragmatic Politics

CHINA AND ISRAEL:_ PRAGMATIC POLITICS Gerald Segal analysis of what appears on the surface of world politics is all very well but often leaves the observer vulnerable to sudden revelations about the covert dimension of policy. The surface rarely reflects the full story, as the revelations concerning secret U.S. arms sales to Iran or regular stories of espionage remind us. Some stories remain hidden longer than others; the tale of secret relations between China and Israel has only recently begun to unravel in public. While reports of an imminent exchange of diplomatic relations between the two countries seem implausible , a more "common law" marriage arrangement does seem possible. The relationship is not of major strategic importance to either country, but in its metamorphosis from the publicly hostile to the covertly and quietly pragmatic in recent years, the main components of Chinese and Israeli foreign policy have been clarified. For a pariah state like Israel, the notion of a covert foreign policy comes more naturally. Forced to live on the fringes of the non-Western diplomatic world, Jerusalem has excelled in intelligence gathering, pragmatic alliances of convenience, and subtle searches for foreign trading partners wherever possible. In recent years even China has learned to explore the pathways of pragmatism to its own benefit, for example, by Gerald Segal is the editor of the new quarterly journal The Pacific Review and lecturer in politics at the University of Bristol, England. His most recent publications include Defending China (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1985) and, with Anne Gilks, China and the Arms Trade (New York: St. Martin's Press, 1985 and Beckenham, Kent: Croom Helm Ltd., 1985). This article was written while the author enjoyed the hospitality of the Truman Institute at the Hebrew University ofJerusalem. It is also the author's pleasure to acknowledge the critical advice of Yitzhak Shichor and Lillian Craig Harris on earlier drafts. 195 196 SAIS REVIEW trading heavily with South Korea while denying that any such contacts exist or by maintaining U.S. listening posts on its territory while denying any such "strategic cooperation" with Washington. In the era of Deng Xiaoping, one of the areas where China has displayed its talent for pragmatism to the full is the Middle East. In order to explain the importance of new trends in Sino-Israeli relations , it is useful to return to the roots of the relationship. By subsequently analyzing the logic of cooperation and the details of recent contacts, it will be possible to assess the importance of these trends. Needless to say, much of this hidden picture is difficult to assess, but it is surely useful to try to cast such light as there is on a dark canvas. The Roots of the Relationship Chinese geologists have recently announced that millions of years ago China was a Mediterranean state.1 Although both the Israelis and the Chinese are fond of historical analogies, fortunately one need not go so far back in history to find reason for close Sino-Israeli relations. Both states have shared a number of modern experiences. The modern state of Israel was founded in May 1948 but spent its first years fighting for survival. The People's Republic of China was declared by Mao Zedong in October 1949 after a lengthy civil war. Both states were new but claimed links to great and ancient civilizations. Both states were also born with a strong dose of the ideology of revolution, although the Zionist dream was more socialist than communist and on a much smaller scale. Both were also strongly nationalistic. The Zionist cause wasJewish nationalism incarnate, derived from a nineteenth-century European trend to nationstates . Mao came to power as the great unifier of a China that had been misused by foreigners, invaded by the Japanese, and riven by civil war. Not surprisingly, both states were quick to seek the common ground of diplomatic relations. This is not the place to narrate why the delicate diplomatic dance between them failed to produce an exchange of ambassadors early in both nations' lives.2 Suffice it to say that as the cold war deepened, communist China took radically different positions from an Israeli state increasingly dependent...