Opinion | Israel-Gaza war: how China is prioritising politics over economic interests in the Middle East

As the Israel-Hamas war rages in the Middle East, the international community is debating the extent to which this conflict might spiral into a regional catastrophe.

For Israel, this war is its most existentially threatening since its 1948 War of Independence. For the world, the stakes have not been higher since the 1973 Yom Kippur War between Israel and Egypt, when Russian and American intervention took it to the brink of atomic war.

The current war began on October 7 with a surprise attack by Hamas terrorists on Israeli communities bordering Gaza. The atrocities were some of the worst committed since Israel’s founding. Since then, the blaze of conflict has threatened to expand and the Middle East has come closer to the brink of regional war.

Iranian proxies in Iraq and Lebanon are attacking American and Israeli assets, and the United States is taking a more active role in the region than it has in well over a decade. This has included placing the world’s largest aircraft carrier, the USS Gerald R. Ford, and a carrier strike group on standby in the East Mediterranean.

China’s engagement with the region has been primarily economic, but the growing perception of US disengagement from the Middle East has led to a comprehensive foreign policy recalibration in Beijing.