Publication

From May 5 - 10, 2013 Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu visited Beijing at the invitation of Chinese Premier Li Keqiang. During the same time, Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas was in China at the invitation of Chinese President Xi Jinping. This paper disusses that by receiving leaders of both countries, China’s new leadership demonstrated their attention to the Middle East and the peace process, and signals a new era of China’s proactive Middle East policy in view of the Arab Spring aftermath and America’s Asia Pivot. As China recalibrates its Middle Eastern strategy and power balance with the US, Sino‐Israel relation is gaining prominence, with important implications for US‐Israel relations. This in turn, needs to be viewed within the context of US‐China relations—with Taiwan as the cornerstone of this relationship.