July 25, 2024
LONDON, BEIJING – More than a dozen Palestinian factions, including bitter rivals Fatah and Hamas, signed a joint declaration in Beijing on July 23, vowing to form an interim unity government that will govern all the occupied Palestinian lands once the fighting in Gaza stops.
The deal has been hailed by Beijing as a decisive step in ending the war in Gaza.
Foreign Minister Wang Yi described the agreement, dubbed the Beijing Declaration, as a “historic moment for the cause of Palestine’s liberation”, while state news agency Xinhua presented the deal as a “vivid manifestation of China’s concrete actions to promote the building of a community with a shared future for mankind”.
There is no question that brokering the Palestinian agreement will boost China’s international standing.
However, there are serious doubts about the deal’s practical implications for the fighting in Gaza or the broader power balance in the Middle East.
Although Chinese officials present the agreement they brokered as a great diplomatic breakthrough, the truth is that every few years, representatives of Hamas and Fatah – the leading proponents of the Palestinian cause – meet, sign a reconciliation agreement, and then promptly return to fighting each other.
Until recently, everything pointed to more confrontation. Hamas in Gaza continued to fight alone against Israel, while the secular Fatah of Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas hunted down its Islamist Hamas rivals in the West Bank.
Still, the Chinese intervention was perfectly timed.
Fatah’s control over the West Bank is increasingly tenuous, as the Israeli government defies both world public opinion and the advisory rulings of the International Court of Justice and continues to expand illegal Jewish settlements.
And although it has not been defeated, Hamas is struggling to retain control in Gaza.
The agreement brokered by China aims to compensate for the weakness of the two Palestinian bodies. It also emphasises the role of the Fatah-dominated Palestine Liberation Organisation (PLO), the umbrella body for all the Palestinian factions, as the sole representative of the Palestinian nation.
The Beijing Declaration, therefore, addresses a key question plaguing international efforts to stop the bloodshed in Gaza: Who will govern Gaza after a ceasefire is in place?
Sadly, the deal changes nothing.
Many Fatah leaders, including people close to President Abbas, suspect that Hamas – which evicted Fatah from Gaza in 2007 by slaughtering many Fatah officials – will never relinquish its control of Gaza and only wants Fatah’s involvement as a political cover for Hamas’ continued rule.
The fact that Hamas intends to continue its own direct and separate negotiations with Israel over the fate of the Israeli hostages Hamas captured after its incursion into Israel in October 2023 suggests the militant organisation has no intention of making concessions to Fatah, notwithstanding the Beijing agreement.
Furthermore, Israel, the United States and many European countries have publicly rejected any formal involvement of Hamas in the future government of Gaza.
While the Europeans might be tempted to abandon their opposition to Hamas if this is couched as part of the Palestinian-wide government as envisaged in the Chinese-brokered deal, neither the US nor Israel would ever countenance such a concession.
In any case, Fatah is not known for its governing skills. Its officials and those of the PLO remain bywords for incompetence and corruption in the Palestinian community; it is why Fatah lost the only elections held in Gaza back in 2006.
The Beijing Declaration is not a basis, and perhaps not even a building block, for a Gaza political settlement.
Its significance lies largely in that it is part of a new Chinese diplomatic strategy to cast Beijing as a provider of diplomatic solutions to conflicts around the world without embroiling China in any long-term commitments or significant obligations.
The strategy was first unveiled in March 2023 when China brokered a deal between Saudi Arabia and Iran, the Middle East’s biggest strategic rivals.
An accommodation between the two was on the cards for quite some time beforehand, but it was Mr Wang who presided over the Saudi-Iranian reconciliation.
The same is happening now with the deal between Fatah and Hamas.
Middle Eastern actors consent to sign such deals with China partly because they hope to get Chinese backing in the future and partly because they know such agreements annoy the US. But the signatories seldom take their promises seriously.
The US clearly also features in the Chinese calculus. Beijing is shrewdly filling the void left by the Americans in the Middle East, keeping busy with the Gaza conflict by pushing out a peace plan and hosting Arab foreign ministers at a summit to try to end the war.
‘Moral high ground’
“China is using this as an opportunity to highlight its credentials as a ‘responsible great power’ and to possibly claim the moral high ground over the US in demonstrating its contribution to peace in the Middle East,” said Assistant Professor Benjamin Ho at the S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies.
An op-ed by the Global Times on July 24 noted that Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba was also in town, his first visit to China since Russia invaded Ukraine.
The parties involved in the two major ongoing conflicts in the world are in China, both “seeking goals related to ‘peace’”. This is not coincidental, said the op-ed.
“China’s impartial stance, free from selfish motives or interests, has garnered increasing trust from the international community,” it declared.
It would be a stretch to think there isn’t an iota of Chinese self-interest at play.
Aside from the diplomatic feather in its cap as a global peace broker, some believe this new deal could allow China to secure a significant role in Gaza’s reconstruction efforts.
“Given (China’s) current economic circumstances and the potential for large-scale reconstruction contracts, this is a strategic move to enhance its economic presence and influence in the region,” said Professor Habib Al Badawi at the Lebanese University.
But while China has traditionally approached diplomacy with a principle of non-interference and a penchant for economic incentives, its growing peace-broker ambitions have marked a significant shift in its foreign policy.
At the signing of the Palestinian agreement, Mr Wang was reported to have said: “Reconciliation is the internal affair of Palestinian factions, and cannot happen without international support” – a seeming departure from its usual non-interference position.
“That Beijing seems more open to an external role in what it might consider internal issues could be a sign of a more active foreign policy that is open about the potential for intervention,” said Associate Professor Chong Ja Ian at the National University of Singapore.
But a move in this direction could also be in tension with China’s position about Taiwan being an “internal” matter, said Prof Chong.
Beijing has always blocked discussion of Taiwan, which it deems a domestic issue.
Still, with two successive wins as a high-profile mediator in a region it has worked hard at gaining influence in, Beijing isn’t stopping in its tracks.