READING THE PRESS IN China, one would never know that the Communist state has diplomatic relations with Israel. A sampling of the coverage from China’s tightly-controlled newspapers on Israel’s recent war against Hezbollah can lead to only one conclusion: Beijing is no friend of the Jewish state.
From day one, Beijing questioned Israel’s claim of self-defense and branded Israel’s action as “aggression.” The chief reporter of the Shanghai Wenhui Daily said that the two Israeli soldiers were, in fact, captured by Hezbollah inside of Lebanon. It implied that the soldiers shouldn’t have been there in the first place, and that Hezbollah couldn’t be blamed for snatching them.
A column in The Beijing News told its readers that, throughout history, nations that launched invasions always manufactured a nice excuse to do so–suggesting that Hezbollah was the victim of an unprovoked aggression. “Israel’s military reaction is called aggression by many people as the Israeli army has entered other people’s land . . . [A]ttacking Israel is in fact anti-aggression,” the author wrote.
Overreaction was another label frequently applied to Israel. A research fellow from the Institute of America Studies and affiliated with the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, Tao Wenzhao, accused Israel of starting the war unnecessarily. “Minor provocative acts are commonplace between Israel and Hezbollah and between Israel and Palestinian guerrillas,” Mr. Tao informed us in a China Daily commentary, implying that Israeli response was far out of proportion.
Echoing this sentiment, The Beijing News editorialized that Israel, in fact, could have chosen other approaches to deal with the hostage incident, but believed itself powerful enough to bully a weaker Lebanon through invasion. The paper concluded that Israel’s invasion of Lebanon, as well as its unilateral policy towards Palestine, reflected an arrogant attitude contemptuous of the Arab world. “Israel’s action towards Lebanon has totally destroyed the mutual trust between the Arab world and Israel that once existed during the Middle East peace process in the 1990s” the paper said.
And even if the Israelis were indeed engaged in a war of self-defense, in the eyes of the Chinese media they were still guilty of willfully killing innocent civilians. A columnist at the Southern Metropolis Daily asked “Why could the Israeli army openly violate international conventions and kill the civilians without any hesitation?” People’s Daily provided an answer: Israel couldn’t care less about the lives of the Lebanese. “Israel is violating the territory and sovereignty of another nation and is destroying the people’s lives and properties. Not only is this a serious violation of international laws, but it is also against the principle of humanitarianism,” the official mouthpiece also said.
And even if Hezbollah was the aggressor, that in no way justified the Israeli response according to well-known scholar Yan Xuetong, the director of the Institute of International Studies at Tsinghua University. Writing in Global Times, Yan described the actions of both the Israeli army and Hezbollah as examples of terrorism. “There’s no difference in nature between the Israeli invasion of Lebanon and all other large nations invading small nations throughout history,” he added.
Others claim Israel simply doesn’t want peace. “From the 1967 war onward, Israel’s key strategic goal has been to avoid a political process at all costs,” China Daily said. For the Chinese press, Israel can do no right.
ULTIMATELY, CRITICIZING ISRAEL is only a pretext for Beijing to condemn its real target: America. The Southern Metropolis Daily quoted Cato Institute’s Jonathan Clarke approvingly: “The U.S. and Israel have become one country.” The paper continued to say that, at best, America has done too little too late to restrain Israel’s military actions; at worst, America would support Israel under any circumstances.
Keeping with the theme of Israel as an American pawn, Nan Fang Daily claimed that America was using Israel to divide the Arab world. “All the U.S. has been doing is to facilitate the Israeli invasion and not to stop its military follies. Washington is only interested in suppressing anti-American forces and not trying to solve the real problem,” it said.
The U.N. cease-fire resolution was also seen as deeply suspect. People’s Daily said the resolution wasn’t fair because it reflected the ongoing U.S. bias for Israel and neglected reasonable requests from Lebanon. “It will neither bring security and peace to Lebanon and the region nor solve the dispute between Israel and Lebanon,” the paper judged. The paper also reminded its readers that “the U.S. has always abused its veto power at the United Nations Security Council to block any resolution unfavorable to Israel.”
When Guangming Daily tried to enlighten its readers about the Middle East, the expert the paper turned to was the Syrian ambassador to China. According to this former journalist, the primary reason why peace remains elusive in the Middle East is Israel’s policy of invasion, expansion, and occupation. And the Jewish state is also guilty of refusing to have real negotiations. “If the U.S. doesn’t change its wrong policy, the Middle East will continue to be disruptive,” he warned.
People’s Daily said Washington was hoping to use Israel to reshape the Middle East. However, Washington’s one-sided support to Israel has backfired, the paper claimed. The “U.S. has become a shield for Israel and the Arab world is all going against the shield. The grand plan of remaking the Middle East has been disrupted,” it said. “No matter how advanced the U.S. troops are equipped, this war of injustice is doomed to fail. A new Middle East can’t be created by violence.”
And the future? It seems fitting that the Shanghai Wenhui Daily‘s correspondent in Paris quotes a French magazine in his analysis: “The U.S., facing enemies in Iraq, Iran and Lebanon, will suffer a miserable defeat.” And if not, the Chinese press can call it a defeat anyway.
Kin-ming Liu, a former chairman of the Hong Kong Journalists Association and general manager of Hong Kong’s Apple Daily, is a Washington-based columnist.
