As Arthur Herman warned last year, Jerusalem’s growing economic and technological cooperation with Beijing could prove to be a thorn in the side of its crucial friendship with Washington. Since then, both Israel and the U.S. have become more aware of the dangers that might come, for instance, from allowing Chinese firms to manage the port at Haifa, build an Israeli light-rail system, or provide 5G wireless service. John Hannah argues that, if both countries make the correct readjustments, the Jewish state can become one of America’s most helpful allies in containing China:
At the core of newfound U.S. concerns is the enormous priority that China has placed on acquiring advanced technologies to catalyze its military modernization and economic expansion at the expense of the United States. . . . In light of Israel’s emergence as one of the world’s leading hubs for science and technology, there’s every reason to worry that China intends to exploit its expanding presence there similarly to disadvantage U.S. interests.
The high-level U.S. warnings about China already seem to have had some effect. A year ago, my conversations with senior Israeli officials about the risks associated with Beijing’s growing role in Israel’s economy drew mostly blank stares. . . . That’s no longer the case. Israel’s leaders are now acutely aware of the problem and the dangers it could pose to the U.S.-Israel strategic partnership if left unattended. As a first step, they’ve already privately assured Washington that [the Chinese telecommunications giant] Huawei will have no role in building Israel’s 5G telecommunications infrastructure—a top U.S. priority.
Given the high stakes involved, the United States and Israel would be wise to make China policy an official part of their regular strategic dialogues. . . . But the Trump administration’s ambitions should go well beyond simply making sure that Israel doesn’t become a source of problems for U.S. strategic competition with China. The real goal should be ensuring that Israel, an emerging technological superpower, becomes one of the United States’ most important assets in the coming struggle with China for global high-tech preeminence.
In recent years, U.S.-Israeli cooperation has already helped achieve major advances in areas such as missile defense and anti-tunnel technologies. The United States is now adopting many Israeli systems to help protect U.S. forces in the field, including Iron Dome batteries for shooting down short-range rockets and Trophy armor protection for defeating anti-tank missiles. Given how central the mastery of emerging technologies will be to the 21st century’s global balance of power, Washington should now be doubling down on expanding its ability to access and exploit Israel’s world-class high-tech capabilities.
Read more on Foreign Policy: https://foreignpolicy.com/2019/09/19/israel-shouldnt-worry-about-ilhan-omar-it-should-worry-about-xi-jinping/