The Reason China Opposes The Arab World On Jerusalem

Elder of Zion directs us to a post by Victor Shikhman who asks Is China more pro-Israel than Europe and the United States?:

It went unnoticed by me, and apparently by much of the international English language media, that China, a traditionally loyal diplomatic backer and arms supplier of the Arab states and their terrorist proxies, is carving out an increasingly nuanced position on the Israeli-Arab conflict, one more balanced to the interest of the State of Israel and more likely to result in a just and lasting peace agreement. Here's the report, from May 14th, 2010, on Al Jazeera (Google Translation):

A dispute on Jerusalem between the Chinese and the Arab delegation, attending the fourth session of the Ministerial Meeting of China-Arab Cooperation Forum in the port city of Tianjin. The dispute erupted after Chinese officials refused to sign a joint document with the delegation, which includes the Arab Foreign Ministers, East Jerusalem as the capital of a Palestinian state. According to Al Jazeera's correspondent in China, Ezzat Shahrour that the Arab delegation was surprised at the last minute when Chinese officials refused to sign the document, despite all the efforts that have been made at the last minute in order to contain the situation.

Based on a Chinese communique, Elder of Zion points out that China is not flat-out opposing the splitting of Jerusalem:

So while it does indeed appear that China is not officially supportive of Jerusalem being the capital of a Palestinian Arab state, they still want Jerusalem to be divided.

Still, why should China care one way or another?

In a post I wrote in 2007, I pointed out that the US was equally opposed to both Jerusalem as Israel's capital and Taiwan being admitted to the UN.

I later updated the post with the following:

The Taiwan/Jerusalem parallel works from the other direction as well. Eric Olander writes about the point of view of Mainland China:

While a student at Beijing University, I onced asked my professor why it was that everyone from the taxi driver on the streets of Changsha to the highest government official in Zhongnanhai was uniform in their determination on the Taiwan question, it was simply put to me: "Taiwan is our Jerusalem."

China may not see eye-to-eye with Israel on many issues--and not even on Jerusalem as Israel's undivided capital--but they do know where Israel is coming from.

Technorati Tag: China and Taiwan and Jerusalem.