Israel Is Not Going Wobbly on China

I n a speech to Israel’s parliament this past Monday, House Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R., Calif.) reminded the country of the threats of cyberespionage and intellectual property theft from the Chinese Communist Party (CCP). In what some have mischaracterized as a confrontation, he urged Israel to increase its oversight of foreign investments, given its extensive economic cooperation with China. Although he deserves credit for acknowledging the 2019 establishment of Jerusalem’s foreign-investment advisory committee, he failed to mention this committee’s recent expansion. And while McCarthy commendably reiterated support for the U.S.–Israel alliance, the Chinese threat has contributed to a measure of American disenchantment with Jerusalem. Some view Israel’s diplomatic ambiguity on certain consensus issues as undermining Washington’s already declining position on the international stage.

As Beijing has risen in global influence, bipartisan apprehension in the U.S. toward Sino–Israeli cooperation has risen with it, and rightly so. Now more than ever, though, Israel itself shares concerns about China’s role and has made efforts to show that skepticism about its economic relations with Beijing, and how they affect geostrategic matters, is misplaced.

The international arrangements Washington has built since the mid 20th century are under siege in the Middle East. Most recently, the Beijing-organized rapprochement between Saudi Arabia and Iran took the U.S. by surprise. The Saudis have re-engaged with Hamas and Syrian leader Bashar al-Assad and have met with Palestinian president Mahmoud Abbas. The Iran nuclear program remains a threat, as Tehran has reached 84 percent uranium enrichment (just 6 percent shy of weapons-grade). Meanwhile, China maintains a naval base in Djibouti, the African port country strategically located between the Red Sea and the Gulf of Aden and thus an energy-trade choke point, giving Beijing the potential to undermine U.S. influence in the Middle East. These developments are ominous.

The U.S. and Israel maintain a solid economic partnership, with trade between the countries reaching $31.7 billion in 2021. China is Israel’s largest trading partner in Asia, with annual trade reaching $20 billion in 2021, up from just $250 million in the 1990s. While Sino–Israeli trade numbers have decreased since their 2018 peak, due in part to the pandemic and concerns of cyberespionage and other security issues, the two countries remain committed to economic cooperation.

Most recently, the China-Israel Joint Committee on Innovation Cooperation (JCIC) produced the China-Israel Innovation Cooperation Plan (2022–24), which focuses on science and technology, health, culture, environmental protection, clean energy, and intellectual property. Israel leads in research and development in the most vital industries of our time, such as semiconductor-chip design and now manufacturing as well as defense and military technology. Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has made it clear to the Chinese that many of these technologies are off-limits to them, as Washington has been and will continue to be its main partner. But the civil benefits that Israeli innovation in pharmaceuticals, energy, agriculture, water, and food technology can provide the 1.4 billion Chinese should be no threat to Washington as long as Jerusalem does its due diligence.

The Jewish State’s alignment with the U.S. is a fact of which the CCP is painfully aware. In the 1950s, shortly after Israel was established, Israel was pressed to reverse its nonalignment policy as the Korean War pitted the United States against China. For Israeli officials, this alignment was a matter of survival, as they believed it necessary to secure the support of the U.S. Although Israel and China would later establish strong trade relations, this deep values-based alignment with the democratic bloc remains unchanged.

From Israel’s point of view, establishing friendly relations with nations big and small has immense value, but Israel knows this goal cannot come at the price of its closeness with the U.S. Its leaders knew it in the 1950s when they abandoned plans to establish official diplomatic relations with Beijing, just as its current leaders know it. Jerusalem vowed in late 2021 to inform Washington in advance of any significant investment deals it might make with Beijing and signaled its willingness to reconsider if necessary. Israel is also taking a more deliberate role in overseeing projects by Chinese companies on Israeli soil, such as the Tel Aviv light rail and critical infrastructure projects in the water and energy sectors. The foreign-investments advisory committee that Speaker McCarthy referred to had its powers expanded late last year, requiring further scrutiny of and sensitivity to Israel’s national-security needs when deciding whether to accept foreign investment.

One critical goal of these precautions is to prevent the threat of dual-use goods, that is, technologies and other products that could be marketed as having civilian applications while also having military ones. The signal that Jerusalem is sending could hardly be clearer. Yet some U.S. lawmakers and officials, along with the wider American public, have failed to recognize it.

Israel’s international relations and national-security strategy are at another pivotal moment. The re-emergence of an anti-Russia coalition among Western allies, Iran’s uranium enrichment, and the U.S.–China rivalry have catalyzed the recognition of shared and interconnected security challenges. Israel is again forced to reconcile its deep desire to stay in Washington’s good graces (and to maintain good relations with the West in general) with the implications of its vulnerable geographic position. It has managed to maintain deep economic cooperation with China while navigating its precarious position as the enemy of many and deepening its military and technological partnership with America.

Jerusalem was slow to condemn Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and has also refrained from providing meaningful military aid, citing national-security concerns (primarily that Russia, with its presence in Syria, allows Israel to use Syrian airspace to strike Iranian targets; the prime minister at the time also cited concerns about the safety of Jews in Russia). In 2021, Israel issued support for a U.N. Human Rights Council statement criticizing China’s human-rights violations against the Uyghur minority only after the U.S. embassy in Israel pressured the country’s foreign ministry to do so.

A deeper layer of Jerusalem’s ambiguous diplomacy is that Russia and China are both potential security threats. Russia, through its proven military cooperation with Iran and its meddling in Middle East conflicts, is a more direct threat; China, through its unmatched economic influence on Israel’s adversaries, a more indirect one. An empowered Iran, and by extension its swarm of proxies in the Gulf, Levant, and North Africa, is a much more imminent, even existential, threat to Israel than to any Western nation. It’s not entirely appropriate to apply American standards for diplomatic action and rhetoric to a country with such unique challenges. Rather, Americans should realize that Israeli diplomacy requires particular nuance, and that Jerusalem’s positioning as a stalwart power in the region yields strategic benefits.

As McCarthy signaled, Washington’s expectations should remain high that Israel will continue to maintain comprehensive oversight of dual-use goods, Chinese infrastructure projects, and foreign investment. Israel has demonstrated that it is committed to these issues and has already made great strides in tackling the problems that arise from them. Americans participating in international roundtables would also do well to acknowledge Israel’s extreme vulnerability to Iranian proxies and terrorist groups before criticizing its diplomatic choices.

The Biden and Netanyahu administrations may have their disagreements. But strategic dialogue and intelligence-sharing benefit both, and an economically thriving Israel is in America’s interests. In this crucial venue of the U.S.–China rivalry, the U.S. should allow Jerusalem some breathing room in its diplomatic engagements and recognize Israel’s commitment to addressing shared national-security concerns.